Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance 1032201886, 9781032201887

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
1 Introduction: Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance: Solidarity in a Changing World
Prefigurative Practices
The Practice of Solidarity
Book Structure
References
2 Non-Hierarchical and Care-Based Forms of Organization in the New Wave of Societies in Movement
Introduction
Societies in Movement
Zapatistas – Chiapas Mexico
Argentina: Que Se Vayan Todos! – MTDs and Recuperated Workplaces
Recuperated Workplaces in Argentina and Beyond
Real Democracy Movements
On Newness
Pandemic Mutual Aid – COVID Time
Note
Bibliography
3 Reflections On Grassroots Healthcare Provisioning in Greece in Times of Crisis: Breaking With Capitalocentric Fantasy By Prefiguring Futures of Solidarity
Introduction
Context: Austerity, Crisis, and Inequalities in Healthcare
From Protest to Infrastructures of Solidarity
Capitalocentric Fantasy and Crisis
Conclusion
Acknowledgement
Notes
References
4 Collaborating for Change in Critical Times?: Alter-Political Cooperativism in Thessaloniki, Greece
Introduction
Democratic Alter-Politics
The Emergence and Consolidation of Radical Cooperativism in Greece
Everyday Rebellions Or Post-Political Distractions?
Our Case Studies
Lines of Transformation
Equality and Horizontal Decision-Making
Confronting Alienation and Transforming Relationships
From Collective Empowerment to Social Change
Reflecting On Alter-Politics and Cooperativism for Change: Some Lessons From Recent Experience
References
5 Everyday Micro-Resistances and Horizons of Radical Solidarity, Care, and Mutualism
Introduction
Resistance as Creation: The Story of KIA
Resistance as Reparations and Recuperations: The Case of Ri.Maflow
Conclusion
Note
References
6 “It’s Not Like It Just Happened That Day”: Anti-Racist Solidarity in Two Glasgow Neighbourhoods
Introduction
Civic and Political Solidarity
Glasgow’s Activist Landscape
Austerity, Immigration, and Crises
Case Study: “These Are Our Neighbours, Let Them Go!” Building Local Community Resistance to State Hostility and Anti-Immigration Violence
Case Study: “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” Building Community Power With Roma Amidst Interconnected Struggles On Glasgow’s Southside
Conclusion
Notes
References
7 The Small Metal Music Store as a Site of Everyday Decolonial Resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean
Introduction
Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America and the Caribbean
The Small Metal Store in Latin America
More Than Just a Small Metal Music Store
Metal Activism and the Verano Del 19
Continued Dialogues On Resistance and Coloniality
Discussion
Notes
References
8 Manifestation of Protests in Instagram: Images as a Potential Site of Resistance in the 2019 Delhi Protests
Introduction
The Context of the 2019 Delhi Protests
Citizenship, Networked Public Sphere, and Instagram
Imagining With Instagram
Method
Images/artworks Chosen for the Study
Analysis
Protest as Performativity
Manifestation of Individual Faith
Micro-level Communicative Political Acts
Protest Images Contribute to the Public Sphere
Conclusion
Notes
References
9 Communication Practices, New Media Technologies, and Anarchist Movements: The Website of the Greek Anarchist Group Rouvikonas as a “One Stop Shop”
Introduction
About Anarchism
The Communication of Social Movements
The Case of Rouvikonas
Research Questions and Method
Analysis
Conclusion
Notes
References
10 Seeds of Another World: Jinwar Women’s Commune in Rojava
Introduction
The Women’s Commune of Jinwar
Horizontalism
Autonomy
Gender Equality
Ecologism
Affect
Education
Territorialization
Self-Defense
Notes
References
11 Resisting (Everyday) Racism On Social Media: Analysing Responses to the 2018 Mary Beard Twitterstorm
Introduction
The Mary Beard Twitterstorm
Defining Colourblind Racism and Whiteness
Can Online Spaces Facilitate Informal Learning About Whiteness?
Sample
Data Analysis
Ethics
Beard Is Heavily Criticised But Public Figures Defend the “National Treasure”
Researchers Use Beard Controversy to Open Discussion About Whiteness
Little Evidence of Informal Learning
Limitations
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

“This edited collection is exceptional compared to what is usually published in the social movements’ scholarship, because it focuses on everyday micro-​acts of offline and online resistance and solidarity initiatives rather than on mass mobilizations and protests”. Athina Karatzogianni, Professor in Media and Communication, University of Leicester, UK “Far from the dazzling lights of global protests, a much-​needed book that casts light on the myriads of practices of prefigurative politics that animate small-​scale social movements across the world. Relying on a wide array of exciting case studies from both the Global North and the South, this volume reignites hope in the power of solidarity and social change in the face of uncertainty”. Emiliano Treré, Reader in Data Agency and Media Ecologies, Cardiff University, UK. Author of “Hybrid Media Activism” (2019), Winner of the Outstanding Book Award of the ICA Interest Group “Activism, Communication and Social Justice” “This edited collection offers a fascinating account of everyday politics of resistance, of experiments in alternative ways of doing, working and living that receive less attention in the academic literature than spectacular protests and demonstrations. Bringing together case studies of solidarity clinics, workers’ cooperatives, metal music stores and social media activism from countries as diverse as Greece, Italy, Argentina, India, Latin America, Syria and the UK, this book shows the enduring impact of social movements when their alternative visions are applied in practice in their participants’ everyday lived experience.” Anastasia Kavada, Reader in Media and Politics, School of Media and Communication, University of Westminster

Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance

This book focuses on small-​scale mobilisation and everyday social movements that take the form of grassroots resistance and solidarity initiatives. Through a series of case studies drawn from the UK, Europe, India, and Latin America, it examines the dynamics and role of micro-​acts of resistance, with attention to a range of themes including organisational issues, the construction of collective identity, strategies, tactics and participation, and media representations and public perception of small-​scale social movements. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, media and communication, and politics with interests in social movements, political mobilisation, and activism. Stamatis Poulakidakos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Digital Media, University of Western Macedonia (UOWM). He is specialised in media monitoring, propaganda, and quantitative content analysis. He has taken part in many research projects and in various Greek and international conferences. He has authored the book Propaganda and Public Discourse. The Presentation of the MoU by the Greek Media and ​ co-edited Media Events: A Critical Contemporary Approach. In addition, he has published papers on political communication, propaganda, refugees/​ immigrants, social media and the public sphere, political advertisements, social movements, and other media-​related issues. Anastasia Veneti is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University. Her research lays at the intersection of media and politics, including (visual) political communication, digital political campaigning, media framing of protests and social movements, and photojournalism. Her work has been published in edited volumes and academic journals. Recent works include the co-​edited collections: The Edward Elgar Handbook of Researching Visual Politics (2023), The Handbook of Digital Media in Greece: Political Communication and Journalism in Times of Crisis (2020), and Visual Political Communication (2019). She is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Media Research at Bournemouth University.

Maria Rovisco is Associate Professor in Sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. She was previously a lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester. She has research interests in cosmopolitanism, new activisms, citizenship, migrant and refugee arts, and visual culture. Among her books are the co-​edited volumes: Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupations of Public Space (2016), Cosmopolitanism, Religion and the Public Sphere (Routledge, 2014), and The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2017).

Routledge Studies in Political Sociology

This series presents the latest research in political sociology. It welcomes both theoretical and empirical studies that pay close attention to the dynamics of power, popular protest and social movements, as well as work that engages in debates surrounding globalisation, democracy and political economy. Titles in this series Comparing and Contrasting the Impact of the COVID-​19 Pandemic in the European Union Linda Hantrais, Marie-​Thérèse Letablier The Political Attitudes of Divided European Citizens Public Opinion and Social Inequalities in Comparative and Relational Perspective Christian Lahusen Technocratic Politics Beyond Democratic Society? Francesco Antonelli Tracing Cultural Change in Turkey’s Experience of Democratization Unexpected Dialogues on Intolerance Metin Koca European Lobbying An Occupational Field between Professionalism and Activism Christian Lahusen Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance Solidarity in a Changing World Edited by Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco

Social Movements and Everyday Acts of Resistance Solidarity in a Changing World Edited by Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Poulakidakos, Stamatis, 1980– editor. | Veneti, Anastasia, editor. | Rovisco, Maria, editor. Title: Social movements and everyday acts of resistance : solidarity in a changing world / edited by Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2023] | First published 2022 by Routledge. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023009535 (print) | LCCN 2023009536 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032201887 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032208169 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003265337 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Social movements. | Solidarity. Classification: LCC HM881 .S6283 2023 (print) | LCC HM881 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/4–dc23/eng/20230313 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023009535 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023009536 ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​20188-​7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​20816-​9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​26533-​7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003265337 Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

Lists of figures List of tables List of contributors 1 Introduction: Social movements and everyday acts of resistance: Solidarity in a changing world

xi xii xiii

1

S TAMAT I S P OU LA K I DA KO S, A NA STA SI A V ENET I, AN D MARI A ROV I SC O

2 Non-​hierarchical and care-​based forms of organization in the new wave of societies in movement

11

MARI NA SI T RI N

3 Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece in times of crisis: Breaking with capitalocentric fantasy by prefiguring futures of solidarity

26

KON S TAN T I N O S RO U SSO S, JI MENA VA ZQU EZ GARCIA, AN D S AV VAS VO U TY R A S

4 Collaborating for change in critical times? Alter-​political cooperativism in Thessaloniki, Greece

42

T H E OD OROS K A RYOTI S A N D A LEX A N D RO S KIOUPKIOL IS

5 Everyday micro-​resistances and horizons of radical solidarity, care, and mutualism

59

G E ORG E KOK K I N I D I S A N D MA RC O C H EC C HI

6 “It’s not like it just happened that day”: Anti-​racist solidarity in two Glasgow neighbourhoods T E RE SA P I ACEN TI N I , SMI NA A K H TA R , A SH LI MULL E N, AN D G ARE T H MU LV EY

72

x  Contents

7 The small metal music store as a site of everyday decolonial resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean

87

N E L SON VAR A S- ​D Í A Z A N D DA N I EL N EVÁ R EZ ARAÚJ O

8 Manifestation of protests in Instagram: Images as a potential site of resistance in the 2019 Delhi protests

104

S E N T H I V E L A RU LSELVA N

9 Communication practices, new media technologies, and anarchist movements: The website of the Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas as a “one stop shop”

125

S TAMAT I S P OU LA K I DA KO S A N D A NA STA SI A VE NE T I

10 Seeds of another world: Jinwar Women’s Commune in Rojava

140

E MRE S AH I N

11 Resisting (everyday) racism on social media: Analysing responses to the 2018 Mary Beard Twitterstorm

156

C E RI AS H WELL A N D PAU L R EI LLY

Index

174

Figures

0.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 11.1 1 1.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7

“Untitled”. Courtesy of © Dimitris Maris Eric Morales shop in Caguas Definition of sociopath highlighted ahora te persiguen todos tus muertos (now all your dead follow you), reference to those who perished during Hurricane María La Isla del Espanto (The Island of Fright) Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi’s tweet dated 16 December 2019, explaining the position of his government on CAA An Instagram post of Anirban Gosh, depicting the protest performance of the women at Shaheen Bagh One of the activists of Jamia Millia Islamia, Meeran Haider, is addressing a gathering at JMI Ita Mehrotra posted this post on Instagram, extending her support to the protesting women at Shaheen Bagh In commemoration of 300 days of imprisonment of Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid, artist Ita Mehrotra posted this artwork on Instagram Palghat-​based artist Sajeev Sethumadhavan created this image of Bilkis, an old woman protestor of Shaheen Bagh Sangeetha Alwar posted this how-​to-​guide-​protests on Instagram Number of tweets mentioning “Mary Beard,” 16–​20 February 2018 Groups present in tweets supporting Beard Themes present in tweets supporting Beard Sub-​themes present in tweets supporting Beard Groups responsible for tweets criticising Beard Themes present in tweets criticising Beard Sub-​themes in tweets criticising Beard

xix 90 95 96 98 106 113 114 116 116 117 118 160 162 163 164 165 166 167

Tables

8.1 List of selected Instagram images chosen for the study and the handle of the artists/​activists who have contributed to the anti-​CAA protests 11.1 Views taken on Mary Beard during Twitterstorm

111 162

Contributors

Smina Akhtar is a PhD researcher looking at the relationship between how the state produces and reproduces racism and activism resistance in Scotland. Her research has focused on two case studies, the first was the announcement by the governments contractor in Glasgow to evict people in the asylum system from their homes. The grassroots campaign to oppose the evictions was pivotal in organising the Kenmure Street protest which is discussed in her chapter. The second is the campaign to seek truth and justice for the police killing of Sheku Bayoh while he was being arrested. She has a background in grassroots activism and worked in the voluntary and community sector in Glasgow for over 20 years before embarking on her PhD journey. Daniel Nevárez Araújo is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Puerto Rico –​Río Piedras. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts –​Amherst. He has published work in a wide array of topics, including Disability Studies, AIDS/​HIV literature and film, comedy, documentary film, immigration, identity, and heavy metal music in publications such as The Journal of Fandom Studies, The Massachusetts Review, Trespassing Journal, Sargasso, and Metal Music Studies. He has co-​edited the books Heavy Metal in Argentina: In Black We Are Seen (2020) and Heavy Metal in Latin America: Perspectives from the Distorted South (2021) with Dr Nelson Varas-​Díaz. He has also co-​edited various Special Issues for the Metal Music Studies journal, published by Intellect Books. In addition to his academic work, Nevárez Araújo has also worked as a translator. Senthivel Arulselvan has been teaching Communication at South Indian Universities, since 1997. Starting his career as a journalist, Arulselvan has a passion for Journalism and Journalism Education, which saw him serve as a Consultant to UNESCO for its Media Development project in Northern Sri Lanka during 2003–​2005. His other interest resides in learning technologies and open learning, which prompted him to serve at Tamil Nadu Open University during 2006–​2009. He moved to Pondicherry University when the Centre for Electronic Media was instituted at the University in

xiv  Contributors July 2009. He has translated two books, one for UNESCO and the other for IFJ. He associated with the making of two significant documentaries that dealt with Dalit Assertion. He was a visiting professor at the University of Toulon, France, in November 2016 as part of the MOU signed between the two universities. Ceri Ashwell is an independent researcher who studied how social media are used to highlight white privilege and racism. She achieved a distinction in Social Research at the University of Sheffield. Her work has been published in the journal Information, Communication & Society. Marco Checchi is an assistant professor of Organisation Studies at Northumbria University. His current research projects focus on cooperative and mutualistic organisations, particularly social and solidarity clinics and workers’ co-​ops. He has also worked on workers’ recuperated factories and self-​ managed collectives of waste pickers. He has recently published a monograph on the concept of the primacy of resistance in the work of Michel Foucault. Marco is affiliated to the Critical Perspectives in Management Studies research interest group. Jimena Vazquez Garcia is a postdoctoral researcher at Anglia Ruskin University. She holds a PhD in Government from the University of Essex and is a member of the Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis. Her research focuses on theories of political subjectivation and critique in Michel Foucault’s thought. Theodoros Karyotis is a sociologist and social anthropologist who has a long involvement in grassroots collectives. His publications focus on direct democracy, solidarity economy, social movements, and the commons. He is also a translator, an editor, and a documentary field producer, and provides political commentary through opinion articles in Greek, Spanish, and English. He is currently conducting PhD research on housing property as an instrument of governance in Greece and its destabilisation in the conjuncture of the ongoing crisis, in the context of the ERC-​funded project “Property and Democratic Citizenship” at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Alexandros Kioupkiolis is Associate Professor of Contemporary Political Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests are focused on radical democracy, the commons, social movements, and the philosophy of freedom. Recent publications include the papers “Commoning the Political, Politicizing the Common” (Contemporary Political Theory 17.3, 2018), “Movements Post-​Hegemony: How Contemporary Collective Action Transforms Hegemonic Politics” (Social Movement Studies, 17.1, 2018), the coedited volume The Populist Radical Left in Europe (Routledge, 2019, with G. Katsambekis), and the monograph Τhe Common and Counter-​Hegemonic Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), Common

Contributors  xv Hegemony, Populism, and the New Municipalism: Democratic Alter-​Politics and Transformative Strategies (Taylor & Francis, 2023). George Kokkinidis is a senior lecturer of Management at Essex Business School. His research interests lie in the field of Management and Organisation Studies, mainly focusing on alternative forms of organisation and organising, and the organisation of space and commoning. His publications and works in progress are based on collaborations with workers’ cooperatives, social clinics, and solidarity networks. At present he is involved in several funded projects including a European Commission project promoting social economy education, a UKRI-​AHRC project on tackling health inequalities in mental health, and a networking project connecting cooperative and social clinics in Europe to promote an alternative model of organising healthcare. Ashli Mullen is a sociologist who works on questions of race, class, value, and racialised capitalism. She is currently writing a monograph based on her doctoral research, Racialised Capitalism at the Margins: An Ethnography with Roma Migrant Workers, which explores how the links between welfare chauvinism, economic exploitation, and deportability structure the conditions that racialised migrant workers labour under. She was recently a Neil Davidson Postdoctoral Writing Fellow (2022–​2023), and she is an incoming Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) First Book Grant Fellow (2023–​2024). She is also working on a second book, co-​ authored with Satnam Virdee, provisionally titled Marxism and Racialised Capitalism (to be published by Polity Press in 2024). She teaches Sociology at the University of Glasgow. She also works as Creative Director of Romano Lav, an anti-​racist Roma migrant organisation based in Govanhill, Glasgow. Gareth Mulvey is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow. He primarily researches and teaches around issues of migration, migration policy, and the impact of policy on diverse migrant communities, though he also has an interest in the role of the State. His other interests are concerned with social policy, particularly poverty, and about the relationship between central and devolved Government in the UK and how these impact on social policy. Teresa Piacentini is a senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow. She researches and teaches about migration-​related topics and has worked in the area of asylum and refugee migration in Scotland since 2000. Her research, publications, and teaching focus on broad questions of settlement, community, belonging and identity, solidarity, localised resistance, and mobilising practices. She works closely with third sector and grassroots organisations in shaping research questions and projects, in developing teaching materials, and in writing collectively and disseminating the work they do. Prior to her PhD (2012) she worked for ten years as a community

xvi  Contributors interpreter in Scotland mainly with people in the asylum process and a range of public-​sector and third-​sector agencies. Stamatis Poulakidakos is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Digital Media, University of Western Macedonia (UOWM). He is specialised in media monitoring, propaganda, and quantitative content analysis. He has taken part in many research projects and in various Greek and international conferences. He has authored the book Propaganda and Public Discourse. The Presentation of the MoU by the Greek Media (Athens: DaVinci Books) and co-​edited Media Events: A Critical Contemporary Approach (London: Palgrave-​ McMillan). In addition, he has published papers on political communication, propaganda, refugees/​ immigrants, social media and the public sphere, political advertisements, social movements, and other media-​related issues. Paul Reilly is Senior Lecturer in Communication, Media and Democracy at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on digital activism, social media surveillance, and crisis communication. His work has been published in a number of journals, including First Monday, Information, Communication & Society, Journalism, and New Media & Society. Konstantinos Roussos is a lecturer at the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Essex and is a founding member of the Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis. His research, articles, and blogs focus primarily on political sociology (social welfare and social care, social and solidarity economies), political and social theory (with emphasis on post-​structuralist and post-​Marxist theory), social movement studies, the commons, and radical democratic theory and practice. Maria Rovisco is Associate Professor in Sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. She was previously a lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester. She has research interests in cosmopolitanism, new activisms, citizenship, migrant and refugee arts, and visual culture. Among her books are the co-​edited volumes: Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupations of Public Space (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), Cosmopolitanism, Religion and the Public Sphere (Routledge, 2014), and The Ashgate Research Companion to Cosmopolitanism (Routledge, 2017). Emre Sahin is a participant and researcher of social movements, particularly the Kurdish movement, and a sociologist at Binghamton University. Currently, he is writing his dissertation on prefigurative mobilisation and women’s autonomous organising in Rojava (NE Syria). His research interests include Contemporary Sociology, Social Movements, Politics of Resistance, Prefigurative Mobilisation, Political Economy, Jineology, and Rojava Revolution.

Contributors  xvii Marina Sitrin is an associate professor of Sociology at SUNY Binghamton. She holds a PhD in Global Sociology and JD in International Women’s Human Rights. Marina is the co-​author of Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid during the COVID-​19 Crisis; They Can’t Represent Us!: Reinventing Democracy from Greece to Occupy; and author of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina; Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina; and the forthcoming The New Revolutions: From Social Movements to Societies in Movement and Remaking Justice. Marina is a movement participant and researcher, working with, and learning from, new forms of social organisation, such as autogestión, horizontalidad, prefigurative politics, and new affective social relationships. She grounds much of her work in ethnography, oral history, and sociological narrative. Nelson Varas-​Díaz is a professor of Social-​Community Psychology at Florida International University’s Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies. His work related to metal music addresses issues of community formation, linkages between culture and music, and metal music as a decolonial strategy in Latin America. His most recent book is entitled Decolonial Metal Music: A Latin American Perspective (2021). He co-​edited the books Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience (2016), Heavy Metal Music in Argentina: In Black We Are Seen (2020), and Heavy Metal Music in Latin America: Perspectives from the Distorted South (2021). His work has also been published in multiple journals, including Metal Music Studies, International Journal of Community Music, and the Journal of Community Psychology, among others. He produced and/​or directed the award-​winning documentaries The Distorted Island: Heavy Metal and Community in Puerto Rico, The Metal Islands: Culture, History and Politics in Caribbean Metal Music, Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America, and Acts of Resistance: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. He is one of the editors of the Metal Music Studies journal published by Intellect. Anastasia Veneti is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University. Her research lays at the intersection of media and politics, including (visual) political communication, digital political campaigning, media framing of protests and social movements, and photojournalism. Her work has been published in edited volumes and academic journals. Recent works include the co-​edited collections: The Edward Elgar Handbook of Researching Visual Politics (2023), The Emerald Handbook of Digital Media in Greece: Political Communication and Journalism in Times of Crisis (2020), and Visual Political Communication (Palgrave, 2019). She is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Media Research at Bournemouth University. Savvas Voutyras is a senior lecturer in Politics at the Department of Humanities & Law, Bournemouth University. His work combines psychoanalysis and

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xviii  Contributors political discourse theory and has looked at questions of nationalism, the experience and politicisation of loss, the politics of austerity during the economic crisis, and the discourse and politics of evaluation and metrics in economic policy. He is an associate editor for Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. He is currently a Marie Skłodowska-​ Curie fellow at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, working on a research project that critically examines discourses against populism in European politics and media.

Figure 0.1 “Untitled”. Courtesy of © Dimitris Maris.

1 Introduction Social movements and everyday acts of resistance: Solidarity in a changing world Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco

This book is concerned with everyday forms of grassroots resistance, manifested both offline and online. More specifically, it focuses on small-​scale social movements, which implement a variety of solidarity activities, such as –​ but not limited to –​symbolic (online and offline) acts of resistance, small-​scale cooperatives, solidarity economy initiatives, alternative health centers. Even though these initiatives are not new (Sutton, 2000), they have been increasing and expanding in number and scope since the beginning of the 21st century, alongside acts of civil disobedience, in order to respond to social and political challenges. In addition, such activities have remained in the shadow of mass demonstrations, since they tend to receive little attention in the mainstream media (Fominaya, 2017; Karyotis and Rudig, 2018). Thus, this book aims to shed light on offline and online, small-​scale (prefigurative) solidarity initiatives in various world sites. The 21st century witnessed the development of a massive wave of protests around the world (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). As a result of the social unrest caused by financial crises, austerity policies, political crises and totalitarian regimes (Raekstadt and Gradin, 2020), many countries saw the emergence of new social and solidarity initiatives (Biekart and Fowler, 2013; Douzinas, 2013). The global wave of post-​2010 activism highlights how depoliticization, civic disaffection and the rise of individualism go in tandem with the struggle for people’s social and economic rights and the crisis of legitimacy of representative democracy (Sancho, 2014; Raekstadt and Gradin, 2020). Research (see e.g., Fominaya, 2017; Gerbaudo, 2017) has shown that recent anti-​austerity movements not only reject hegemonic narratives of the crisis, but they also emphasize the failure of the political establishment to represent the interests of the people (Rovisco, Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2018). Much of the new resistance against austerity is enacted by autonomous actors (Kaldor and Selchow, 2013) who embrace principles of non-​partisanship and advocate wide protest repertoires varying from large-​ scale mass mobilizations such as the Spanish Indignados’ occupations of public space to more micro everyday forms of grassroots resistance and solidarity initiatives (Vaiou and Kalandides, 2017). DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-1

2  Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco While most research on anti-​austerity movements focuses on mass social mobilizations, occupations and large-​scale demonstrations, less attention has been paid to small-​scale social movements that take the form of everyday grassroots resistance and solidarity initiatives. By “small-​ scale social movement” we mean non-​partisan, grassroots, usually locally organized and situated social movement. This type of social movement might involve large-​ scale (affinity) networks (Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010), but their collective action relies predominantly on everyday micro-​acts of offline and online resistance and solidarity initiatives rather than on mass mobilizations and protests, engaging –​in many cases –​in forms of prefigurative activism, which include solidarity initiatives and/​or civil disobedience. The practices of prefigurative politics and solidarity are central to small-​ scale social movements. “Prefiguration” or “prefigurative politics” refers to a political action, practice, movement, moment, or development in which certain political ideals are experimentally actualized in the “here and now”, rather than hoped to be realized in a distant future (Raekstadt and Gradin, 2020). Overall, forms of prefigurative politics are broadly “progressive” in the sense of being opposed to unjust political structures and committed to individual equality and freedom of expression (Jeffrey and Dyson, 2021, p. 644; Steinmetz et al., 2019; Raekstadt and Gradin, 2020). Closely bound to non-​hierarchical (prefigurative) practices, solidarity is a (political) ethos and a scope –​at the same time –​permeating small-​scale grassroots initiatives (Scholz, 2008; Arampatzi, 2017; Siapera, 2019). The various chapter contributions of the current volume examine notions of prefigurativism and solidarity through a range of case studies drawn from different world sites including Greece, Italy, Argentina, India, Scotland, Latin America, Syria and the UK. Before providing an outline of the various chapters included in the present volume, we want to engage with debates on prefiguration and solidarity that are crucial to understand the make-​up of what we call small-​scale social movements. Prefigurative practices In prefigurative practices the means applied are deemed to embody or “mirror” the ends one strives to realize (van de Sande, 2013, p. 230). Drawing on this definition one can identify the following parameters in prefigurative politics: First, the actualization of a future ideal in the “here and now”; second, the inherent experimental characteristics of such an actualization; and, third, the abolition of the distinction between means and ends (van de Sande, 2013, p. 230). Thus, prefiguration –​as a concept –​can be considered part of the debates and theories around anarchism, social change and imagined futures (Yates, 2021, p. 1034). A key dimension of prefigurative politics is its commitment to action, in order to enact the future in the present (Cooper, 2020, p. 902). This separates prefigurative politics from many other forms of oppositional politics which

Introduction  3 are concerned with acting on dominant powers rather than acting out social alternatives (Jeffrey and Dyson, 2021, p. 646). Hence, small-​scale social movements implementing prefigurative activism act as autonomous social centers, as “hubs where people experiment with political perspectives and social norms, circulate new ideas, and seek to diffuse these ideas to the broader community” (Creasap, 2021, p. 573). The concept of prefiguration was first introduced and developed in the contentious politics literature in the 1970s (Brown, 2020, p. 117; Minuchin, 2021, p. 3), linking prefiguration with 19th century anarchist, syndicalist and communist movements (Gordon, 2018; Minuchin, 2021), described as “the embodiment, within the ongoing political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-​making, culture, and human experience that are the ultimate goal” (Brown, 2020, p. 117). The notion of prefiguration served to distinguish the practices and interventions implemented by numerous radical movements that sought to expand collective action by experimenting with counter-​hegemonic models of everyday experience. Closely linked to the lineage of popular assemblies, soviet and anarchist inspired forms of mutual aid (Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010), prefigurative practices focused on the actuality of change, the critique of bureaucratic structures and the politics of autonomy (Minuchin, 2021, p. 3). Prefigurative politics is an inherently spatial and performative genre of political activism in which people enact a vision of change and promote this as indicative of an imminent or more distant “future” (Brown, 2020, p. 122). There is here a self-​conscious effort to direct energy into practicing the “ideal” future in the present (Jeffrey and Dyson, 2021, p. 644), echoing Emma Goldman’s assertion that “no revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the means used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the purposes to be achieved” (Gordon, 2018, p. 530). Prefiguration entailed experiencing change in the present: Recuperating the right to transform, arrange and administer everyday relations (Minuchin, 2021, p. 4). In a similar vein, prefiguration is about “living your vision of an alternative world as you struggle to create it” (Soborski, 2019, p. 87). In this sense, prefigurative social movements can be seen as spaces where people seek to implement non-​ capitalist, egalitarian and solidaristic forms of political, social and economic organization through a combination of resistance and creation (Jeffrey and Dyson, 2021, p. 644). The small scale of implementation might act as an additional factor increasing the probability of a movement to achieve its aims, given the inherently experimental character of such efforts. Even though it has been criticized as “non-​ revolutionary” (Raekstadt and Gradin, 2020), prefigurative politics is not at all opposed to the struggle against capitalism and the state; it is a thesis about how this struggle needs to be carried out in order to succeed in bringing about a free and democratic socialist society (Raekstad, 2017, p. 6), by creating “cracks” in contemporary social structure, making the dominant social/​political/​financial system more vulnerable (Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010, p. 266). Prefigurative politics

4  Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco asserts alternative ways of living and interaction that prefigure a post-​capitalist way of life, instead of seeking the collapse of the capitalism system as a whole. These “cracks” in the system structure can be of various kinds: spatial (e.g., land occupations), temporal (e.g., short-​lived street protests, or longer-​lasting “Occupy” encampments), resource-​based (e.g., a community establishing control over its water supply), or combinations among them (Young and Schwartz, 2012, p. 221). Achieving a free and democratic future, society requires people capable to organize themselves and others in free and democratic ways. These abilities cannot be handed down in a top-​down rationale by an “enlightened” elite to the masses; instead, they must be developed by the masses themselves through their practices. The organizational means employed in the present must, to a significant extent, prefigure the social organization aimed for in a free and democratic socialist society (Raekstad, 2017, p. 7). The capacities built within prefigurative movements –​especially small-​scale ones, where personal relations have a rather significant role to play –​are not just economic and political; they are also interpersonal (Steinmetz et al., 2019, p. 178). The progressive (r) evolution in human societies goes in tandem with the development of non-​ hierarchical interpersonal relations as well, and individual and collective work –​through prefigurative movements –​is needed to reinvent them. Thus, prefigurative politics/​activism is important for generating revolutionary consciousness (Raekstad, 2017, p. 9). In the academic and activist debate about prefigurative activism, one can find several criticisms as well. Common fears about prefiguration include being too localized, small-​scale and focused on the present, being too easily co-​opted by existing actors, becoming “fetishized” as a process on behalf of the participants (participation for the sake of participation), alienating newcomers and being too closely associated with identity and self-​expression, and lacking actual strategic aims (Yates, 2021, p. 1042; Raekstad and Gradin, 2020). These criticisms appear to be closely related to the experimental nature of prefigurative activism, since both the envisioned ends and means of prefigurative practice are continuously subjected to evaluation and reformulation (van de Sande, 2013, p. 232). Any kind of activism is a process of trial and error, and since exercising activism is not a linear process (Tadros, 2015, p. 1354), it requires constant self-​reflection and social learning. Achievement of a movement’s goals is not to be taken for granted since all progressive activist efforts seek in one way or another to “fight” a dystopic status quo. Hence, failure is part and possible outcome in such procedures, and is heavily dependent on both internal (organizational, functional) and external (contextual, systemic) factors influencing any given movement. The road toward “utopia” is never layered with flowers, but the sheer attempt to enact the change can become the most powerful drive toward the actual change. Regarding the local/​small-​scale character of the movements we discuss in this book, one could argue that this could be indeed a significant advantage.

Introduction  5 Small-​scale social movements do not demand large amounts of resources (human, technical, monetary) in order to become functional. Small groups of people can create a more compact initial core team, able to guide the movement through its first steps until it mobilizes new members. In addition, local small-​scale movements can create affinity (online) networks and exchange resources, information, best practices with other organizations, establishing extensive horizontal networks to further disseminate their activities (Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010). Despite criticisms supporting that small-​scale movements lack strategic planning, paving the way toward more democratic ways of living is in itself strategic, even though the tactics implemented have to be “dynamic” and continuously (re-​) assessed for their effectiveness. Prefigurative politics are politics in the most basic sense: They seek to actualize a (vision of) collective life. Forward looking, yet resolutely present, prefigurative politics activate imagination while reconfiguring lived social relations (Brissette, 2016, p. 116) and the exercise of power. They make people believe in the possibility of an improved and transformed world and embody the courage to (en)act it (Brissette, 2016, p. 117). Though prefigurative politics is focused on the here and now, it may have the unintended long-​term consequence of transforming politics via contentious repertoires that are generated, developed, transmitted and diffused in innovative ways (Tadros, 2015, p. 1366). The partial reconfiguration of power in contemporary societies is the most important contribution of small-​scale (prefigurative) social movements. It is the “utopianization process” that might someday bring closer the change these people are fighting for. Although societies are still very much tied to the modernist/​structural/​ essentialist rationale of authority/​domination that surrounds them, people are beginning to realize their limits. The question we need to ask is where are societies going to next? (Newman, 2001, p. 4) This is exactly why it is important to pay attention to contemporary small-​scale prefigurative social movements interfere. They challenge the existing authority structures, through the constant experimentation on grassroots structures, creating “cracks” (Young, 2012) in the contemporary social, political and financial structure. These cracks are at the same time “glimpses” to a perspective (but not taken for granted) future. These glimpses provide members of the movements with the ability to (self)-​ reflect on what they want to change, on how they could do it, on the resources needed for an actual change to take place, on their (dis)agreements and on their own limits (Newman, 2001, p. 174). Based on the above, we could define progressive small-​scale (prefigurative) social movements as “cracks” in the predominantly top-​down structure of modernity, which practice horizontalism through a learning-​by-​doing procedure that seeks to bring future “utopias” in contemporary social context, working within the discursive construction of modernity, seeking to expose its dead-​ends and limitations.

6  Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco The practice of solidarity The practice of horizontalism in (prefigurative) small-​ scale, grassroots movements is inherently solidaristic. Solidarity takes the form of a political project revolving around ideas of autonomy and self-​organization, freedom, equality and justice (Siapera, 2019). Scholz defines political solidarity as a unity of individuals who have made a conscious commitment to challenge a situation of injustice, oppression, tyranny, or social vulnerability. A political solidary is unified by a shared commitment to a social justice cause (Scholz, 2008). Hence, solidarity can be approached as an ethos and at the same time the basic scope that permeates (small-​scale) social movements. As a scope (political), solidarity holds at least a two-​fold role in current grassroots mobilizations. First, it serves as means to counter the impact of austerity and empower participants against imminent social/​financial crises. Second, it aims to act as a transformative force for participants, engaging them in political struggle and generating new spaces for modeling alternatives (Arampatzi, 2018, p. 60). In this sense we can also talk about “transversal solidarities” (Tazzioli, 2020) –​which echoes the “transversal connections” of Karatzogianni and Robinson (2010), hence efforts that connect people and struggles, seeking to undermine divisive mainstream social categorizations (e.g., between migrants and indigenous people). Political solidarity as an ethos characterizing bottom-​up initiatives is something more than a merely philanthropic rationale. Since in solidarity (prefigurative) movements a broader project of social transformation, constructed in a bottom-​up fashion, is being modeled, through alternatives that aim to challenge the neoliberal order (Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010; Arampatzi, 2018), (political) solidarity has acquired a renewed meaning among grassroots struggles that have actively engaged in the production of a subversive agency to counter austerity and experiment with alternatives (Arampatzi, 2018). In this sense, political solidarity as narrated and practiced through local groups serves, first, as means for survival of vulnerable social groups under austerity policies; second, as a political struggle (Fantasia, 1988; Karatzogianni and Robinson, 2010) that challenges, undermines and subverts dominant perceptions and practices of charity and philanthropy that perpetuate forms of oppression; and, third, as a model for enacting different (often non-​commodified) types of social relations that aim to empower and transform “passive” recipients of support into “active” participants of struggle (Arampatzi, 2017). This perception and practice of political solidarity moves beyond the often one-​directional philanthropic support and links to struggles for broader change (Fantasia, 1988), concurring with the exercise of prefigurative politics (Brissette, 2016). Thus, a key element of contemporary political solidarity movements is the creation of a formation that favors broader and inclusive participation, such as open assemblies, informal membership, rotation of spokespeople, self-​organization, skill-​sharing and horizontal operation (albeit often messy and incomplete) (Arampatzi, 2017).

Introduction  7 Book structure The various chapter contributions examine a range of both offline and online small-​scale (prefigurative) solidarity initiatives. In Chapter 2, Marina Sitrin addresses the past two decades of everyday revolutions and prefigurative practices by briefly discussing a number of movements where she has conducted ethnographies, including, but not limited to, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, the autonomous movements in Argentina post 2001, the Occupy Movement in the US and Movements of the Squares in Southern Europe, and the Regantes in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The forms of organization and theoretical foundations of these movements are then analyzed in tandem with the massive outpouring of mutual aid networks that emerged at the beginning of the COVID-​19 crisis, putting forward the idea that the non-​hierarchical and care-​based forms of organization that develop in times of crisis are part of the same overarching prefiguration that is seen in the “new wave of societies in movement”. In Chapter 3, Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia and Savvas Voutyras explore the discourses and repertoires of social movements and grassroots struggles that emerged as particular forms of response to the recent economic crisis in Greece. The chapter’s goal is to offer a snapshot of the novel practices of solidarity and democratic experimentation that constitute these responses, while also highlighting the broader transformative potential these practices carry. In Chapter 4, Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis provide a critical snapshot of actually existing intentional economies in Greece, based on fieldwork with four cooperatives in the second-​ largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki. The authors pose the following questions: Do alternative economic endeavors live up to the task of destabilizing the economy as it is usually known and performed, or do they submit politics to the laws of the economy, as critics would have it? This chapter explores the political potential of alter-​ economic projects. It probes their capacity to transform established day-​to-​day relationships, examines the implementation of novel egalitarian and horizontal modes of operation, and assesses their contribution to broad social transformation toward more equitable, autonomous, plural, solidary, ecologically sustainable and caring worlds. In Chapter 5, George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi look at everyday resistant practices that create alternative organizations and horizons of change. Drawing on data collected through a range of qualitative methodologies (semi-​ structured interviews, participant observation and informal group conversations) from KIA, a social and solidarity clinic in Greece, and Ri.Maflow, a recuperated factory in Italy, the authors explore the microphysics of resistance at work and its transformative potential. They reflect on how a social clinic evolves from a healthcare initiative to a health community and a space of wider social experimentation that is questioning the traditional hierarchical structure of the medical apparatus. They show how a recuperated factory is more than a reaction to unemployment, as it reinvents work, autonomy

8  Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco and self-​management within the walls of the warehouse and in its relationship with the wider ecology of its community. The authors emphasize how these forms of resistance are not simply a reaction against the loss of social and economic infrastructures due to austerity, but active practices of solidarity that experimentally engage with creation having often unintentional and unanticipated outcomes. In Chapter 6, Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen and Gareth Mulvey explore and critically analyze what they understand by solidarity and relate this historically to everyday grassroots resistances and solidarity initiatives with, for and by racialized migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum and third-​sector organizations in Glasgow, Scotland. In addition, the authors examine the relationship between austerity and immigration and how this relationship shapes both opportunities for and articulations of resistance. Focusing on anti-​racist solidarity in two Glasgow neighborhoods, the authors use history, memory, time and place as analytical lenses to understand everyday resistance. In so doing, they show how the past is put to work in the present in relation to immigration and borders regimes against a backdrop of austerity. In Chapter 7, Nelson Varas-​Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo explore how small metal music stores throughout Latin America and the Caribbean can become spaces for everyday acts of resistance. The authors discuss a metal store in Puerto Rico as a case study and examine how it fostered political involvement against the local colonial government during what has come to be known as the Verano del 19 (Summer of 2019). The authors go on to discuss the implications of their findings and experiences for metal and decolonial studies. In Chapter 8, Senthivel Arulselvan analyzes the spontaneous response of artists’ and activists’ artworks, paintings, caricatures, photographs, images and other visuals shared on Instagram, in the light of performativity, micro-​ activism and personalized action, during the protests that flared up in many parts of India contesting the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA), since December 2019, up until the COVID-​19 pandemic-​induced lockdown was imposed in late March 2020. Having as reference point these events, the author discusses the culture of protest and its intersection with digital platforms. In Chapter 9, Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti focus on the communication practices of the Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas (Roubicon) through a multimodal analysis of the homepage of the group’s website. Their analysis shows that the group’s website serves as a one-​stop shop designating the desire of the movement to promote its anarchist doctrine as openly and widely as possible in order to attract more members and to act as the communication battering ram of anarchism in Greece. In Chapter 10 Emre Sahin having as a starting point the idea that prefiguration centers around the idea that present politics can and should practice elements of a desired future, goes on to show how micro-​acts of solidarity and resistance –​particularly those led by women –​enable communities to shape present politics with elements of a desired future. In order to explore the

Introduction  9 possibilities of prefigurativism, he focuses on Jinwar, a Women’s Commune in Rojava. Finally, in Chapter 11 Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly focus on the 2018 Mary Beard Twitterstorm to explore how Twitter is used by activists to both highlight and counteract online hate speech, and thus acting in solidarity with its victims. They do so by reviewing the literature on social media and whiteness, providing background on the “Mary Beard Twitterstorm”, and presenting the results of a qualitative content analysis of 1718 unique tweets containing the words “Mary Beard”, posted between 16 and 20 February 2018. Results indicate that there were nearly twice as many tweets criticizing the Cambridge scholar for perpetuating white privilege and frailty than defending her tweet. This study also demonstrates the crucial role of opinion leaders in leading difficult conversations about racism and whiteness online. References Arampatzi, A. (2017). The spatiality of counter-​ austerity politics in Athens, Greece: Emergent ‘urban solidarity spaces.’ Urban Studies 54(9): 2155–​2171. Arampatzi, A. (2018). Constructing solidarity as resistive and creative agency in austerity Greece. Comparative European Politics 16: 50–​66. Biekart, K. & Fowler, A. (2013). Transforming activisms 2010+​: Exploring ways and waves. Development and Change 44(3): 527–​546. Brissette, E. (2016). The prefigurative is political: On politics beyond ‘the state’. In Dinerstein, A.C. (Ed.), Social sciences for an other politics: Women theorizing without parachutes (pp. 109–​119). Palgrave Macmillan. Brown, A.J. (2020). Translating prefigurative politics: Social networks and rhetorical strategies in the alter-​globalisation movement. The Translator 26(2): 117–​129. Cooper, D. (2020). Towards an adventurous institutional politics: The prefigurative ‘as if’ and the reposing of what’s real. The Sociological Review 68(5): 893–​916. Creasap, K. (2021). ‘Building future politics’: Projectivity and prefigurative politics in a Swedish social center. Social Movement Studies 20(5): 567–​583. Douzinas, C. (2013). Philosophy and resistance in the crisis. Polity Press. Fantasia, R. (1988). Cultures of solidarity: Consciousness, action, and contemporary American workers. University of California Press. Flesher Fominaya, C. (2017). European anti-​austerity and pro-​democracy protests in the wake of the global financial crisis. Social Movement Studies 16(1): 1–​20. Gerbaudo, G. (2017). The indignant citizen: Anti-​austerity movements in southern Europe and the anti-​oligarchic reclaiming of citizenship. Social Movement Studies 16(1): 36–​50. Gordon, U. (2018). Prefigurative politics between ethical practice and absent promise. Political Studies 66(2): 521–​537. Jeffrey, C., & Dyson, J. (2021). Geographies of the future: Prefigurative politics. Progress in Human Geography 45(4): 641–​658. Kaldor, M. & Selchow, S. (2013). The bubbling up of subterranean politics in Europe. Journal of Civil Society 9(1): 78–​99. Karatzogianni, A. & Robinson, A. (2010). Power, resistance and conflict in the contemporary world. Social movements, networks and hierarchies. Routledge.

10  Stamatis Poulakidakos, Anastasia Veneti, and Maria Rovisco Karyotis, G. & Rüdig, W. (2018). The three waves of anti-​austerity protest in Greece, 2010–​2015. Political Studies Review 16(2): 158–​169. Minuchin, A. (2021). Prefigurative urbanization: Politics through infrastructural repertoires in Guayaquil. Political Geography 85: 1–​12. Newman, S. (2001). From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-​authoritarianism and the dislocation of power. Lexington Books. Raekstad, P. (2017). Revolutionary practice and prefigurative politics: A clarification and defense. Constellations 25(3): 1–​14. Raekstad, P. & Gradin S.S. (2020). Prefigurative politics: Building tomorrow today. Polity Press. Rovisco M., Veneti A. & Poulakidakos S. (2018). Anti-​austerity protest and democratic vision: The struggle for a new politics –​the case of the Greek “Do Not Pay” social movement. In Axford, B., Gulmez, D.B. & Gulmez, S.B. (Eds.), Rethinking ideology in the age of global discontent: Bridging divides (pp. 32–​47). Routledge. Sancho, G. R. (2014). Networks, insurgencies, and prefigurative politics: A cycle of global indignation. Convergence 20(4): 387–​401. Scholz, S. J. (2008). Political solidarity. Penn State University Press. Siapera, E. (2019). Refugee solidarity in Europe: Shifting the discourse. European Journal of Cultural Studies 22(2): 245–​266. Soborski, R. (2019). Prefigurative politics in anti-​ neoliberal activism: A critique. Perspectives on global development and technology 18: 79–​92. Steinmetz, E, Benac, S., Gonzalez, A. & Humphreys, R. (2019). Building small transformational spaces inside prison walls: Process-​based collaboration, prefigurative politics, and radical imagination. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 29(2): 174–​197. Sutton, P. (2000). Explaining environmentalism: In search of a new social movement. Ashgate. Tadros, M. (2015). Contentious and prefigurative politics: Vigilante Groups’ struggle against sexual violence in Egypt (2011–​2013). Development and Change, published on Behalf of the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Tazzioli, M. (2020). What is left of migrants’ spaces? Transversal alliances and the temporality of solidarity. Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences (PARISS) 1(1): 137–​161. Vaiou, D. & Kalandides, A. (2017). Practices of solidarity in Athens: Reconfigurations of public space and urban citizenship. Citizenship Studies 21(4): 440–​454. Van de Sande, M. (2013). The prefigurative politics of Tahrir Square –​an alternative perspective on the 2011 revolutions. Res Publica 19: 223–​239. Veneti, A. & Poulakidakos, S. (2021). Video-​activism and small-​scale resistance: The visual rhetoric of Youtube videos by the Greek Anarchist Group Rouvikonas. In Crick, N. (Ed.), The rhetoric of social movements: Networks, power and new media (pp. 65–​83). Routledge. Yates, L. (2021). Prefigurative politics and social movement strategy: The roles of prefiguration in the reproduction, mobilisation and coordination of movements. Political Studies 69(4): 1033–​1052. Young, K. & Schwartz, M. (2012). Can prefigurative politics prevail? The implications for movement strategy in John Holloway’s Crack Capitalism. Journal of Classical Sociology 12: 220–​240.

2 Non-​hierarchical and care-​based forms of organization in the new wave of societies in movement Marina Sitrin

Introduction Beginning in the highlands of Chiapas Mexico, with the Zapatistas emergence in 1994, declaring a resounding “Ya Basta!” (Enough!) and rather than making demands on institutional power, they created dozens of autonomous communities, with forms of directly democratic governance, on land they have taken back and recuperated. Then, in Argentina, in 2001 the popular rebellion sang, “Que Se Vayan Todos! Que No Quede Ni Uno Solo!” (Everyone Must Go! Not Even One Should Remain!). As with the Zapatistas, the movements focused on creating horizontal assemblies, focusing on the development of alternatives in the present with new social relationships, creating power together. Taking over and running workplaces by the hundreds, retaking land, creating new collectives and cooperatives, from media to art, and breaking from past hierarchical ways of relating –​forming what they call a new subjectivity and dignity. 2010–​2016 witnessed a similar form of movement around the world –​with millions refusing to remain passive in untenable situations –​and together pulling the emergency break. And in that space, birthing the Movement of the Squares, in towns, villages, and cities, all over the world, people created, and many continue to create new social relationships and ways of being. While each of the practices of these “new” social relationships is not brand new, and has long histories, the fact that this historical moment is witnessing so many millions of people practicing them, all over the world, from vastly different geographies and backgrounds, makes it, taken together, a very new phenomenon and moment. No matter how big or small –​in terms of participation –​social movements are, what remains are the forms of organizing and relating, the use of directly democratic assemblies, the autogestion over placing demands on institutions, the affective relationships developed between the movements' members etc. In some locations, such as Argentina, Mexico, and Poland, there are tens of thousands of women, in assemblies, organizing to protect their bodies and lives, and in others, from the Americas to India, assemblies and direct action are used to defend the earth. In still other locations, from Spain and Greece to the US and South Africa, people are organizing to keep themselves and their DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-2

12  Marina Sitrin neighbors housed and with free and accessible healthcare. And in so many locations the continuation and expansion of autonomous popular education are organized, with direct and participatory democracy and care. All of this is to say that we began and are continuing to recreate how we organize all of those things that are most important to our survival and doing so in ways that are participatory and empowering. And again, at the time of writing this, millions around the world responded immediately when our governments and so-​ called representatives did not support us in this global COVID-​19 pandemic, organizing mutual aid and solidarity groups to feed, protect, and provide company for those most vulnerable. The stories are so similar, again and again, and everywhere, that they must be taken together and seen as part of a new growing phenomenon of everyday resistance that meets creation and together forms new everyday revolutionary processes. This chapter hopes to introduce the reader to some of these different, and yet so very similar experiences of, as the Zapatistas suggest, one No and many Yeses. Societies in movement As people from below are rising up, rather than going toward the top –​“from the bottom up,” they are moving, as the Zapatistas suggested, “From below and to the left, where the heart resides.” Power over hierarchy and representation are being rejected, ideologically and by default, and in the rejection small and massive horizontal assemblies are opening new landscapes with the horizon of autonomy and freedom. As Kurdish scholar-​activist Dilar Dirik beautifully wrote, Today, around the world, people resort to alternative forms of autonomous organization to give their existence meaning again, to reflect human creativity’s desire to express itself as freedom. These collectives, communes, cooperatives and grassroots movements can be characterized as the people’s self-​defense mechanisms against the encroachment of capitalism, patriarchy and the state. (Dirik, 2016) Raul Zibechi helps us understand this sort of movement of regular people, from below and to the left, as societies in movement, rather than social movements (Zibechi, 2012). These societies in movement are throughout the world: From the rainforest of Chiapas, to the lowlands/​desert of Guerrero Mexico, from the Cordillera to Patagonia in Argentina, cities and towns in Southern Europe, Canada and the US and the autonomous zones of Northern Syria (Rojava), and those self-​organized across Bolivia and Brazil. There are working-​class people recuperating workplaces; middle-​class urban dwellers, many recently declassed, organizing in assemblies; and the unemployed like so many, facing the prospect of never encountering regular work, self-​organizing, taking over

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  13 land and creating micro projects; and entire autonomous zones and towns, commoning as they defend and create commons. In this chapter I briefly go into the experiences of the Zapatisas of Mexico, the popular rebellion in Argentina in 2001, the Real Democracy Movements of the 2010s, and the Mutual Aid networks during the COVID-​19 pandemic. There are thousand more examples, and the ones I have chosen to cover in this chapter are based on my experiences and research in those specific places. This edited collection is full of other such examples. What has been taking place in disparate places around the world is part of a new wave that is both revolutionary in the day-​to-​day sense of the word and without precedent with regard to consistency of form, politics, scope, and scale. The current frameworks provided by the social sciences and traditional left to understand these movements have yet to catch up with what is new and different about them. Specifically, the theoretical frameworks for Protest and Contentious Politics within Social Movement1 theory are not sufficient to understand the emergent horizontal, self-​organized, autonomous, and prefigurative practices. I am not going to go into detail on these understandings and frameworks, nor do I describe the more traditional, past and ongoing, movements to which they refer. There is a significant and well-​researched body of work on these frameworks. I do want to make clear, however, that the movements and processes described in this chapter are something different and more of a practice-​based theoretical understanding. Movements described here are often referred to as prefigurative, that is, movements that are transforming the world and focusing both on the long term and attempting to model –​pre­figure –​this future in the present (Maeckelbergh, 2009). They are not looking to the State as their desired end or creating political party platforms to achieve their goals. They do not look to one leader, but make space for all to be leaders, sometimes using the language of leaderful. They place more importance on asking the right questions than on providing the correct answers, “questioning as we walk” as the Zapatistas remind us. They reject dogma and hierarchy in favor of direct democracy and consensus, creating horizontal relationships. Territory is key, not always in the physical sense of it, such as occupying land, but the creation that takes place in the movement, the relations create a new territoriality, such as the autonomous Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil or Unemployed Workers Movement (MTD) in Argentina. In the process, they create themselves anew and, at the same time, reflect on this changed subjectivity. The focus is on caring for each other, building trust and often even using the language of love –​affective politics. Taken together, their ideas of justice and freedom change as they change and thus the movements are theoretically constantly moving, changing and evolving, conceptually and subjectively. Thus, the focus on relationships and things being relational. Most of the movements described here, as well as the emergent movements around the globe, from the anti-​dam struggles in India, and land defense in so-​called North America, to the independence struggle in the Western Sahara,

14  Marina Sitrin are led by women. Some, such as in Argentina, Mexico, Poland, and the US are movements specific to the protection and defense of women’s bodies, lives, and reproduction. As a whole, these movements are facilitated and led by women, even if it is not always a woman who is the first to be interviewed or write about their theory/​practice (Federici, 2018). This chapter is not about this per se, and yet, it is so pervasive that it must be said. I hope you will think/​feel, as you read this, something like, oh, that reminds me of the movement to defend immigrants in California, or many of the groups in the Movement for Black Lives who also organize this way, or, those defending housing in Southern Africa, for example, who have been using these forms of organization for 20 years now, and why didn’t the author include the autonomous movements of women in India, taking over land and self-​ organizing their communities, and what about, and what about … yes! That is one of the things I hope to contribute to with this piece, to open our imaginations as to what is taking place, how it is different, or not, how we reflect on past organizing to see what has worked, been affirmative, and what has not, and what can be done differently. Zapatistas –​Chiapas Mexico Easily the most contemporarily referenced autonomous movement in the world, both because of how they organize and the poetry they use to describe these visions and desires, the Zapatistas opened a collective imagination for radicals looking beyond the state and political parties as to what is possible, leading from below and to the left. “Ya Basta!” (Enough!) was shouted on that infamous day of 1 January 1994 when the Zapatistas appeared to the world refusing to disappear while rejecting 500 years of domination, with the now globally used exclamation, “Ya Basta!” (Enough!). They not only shouted “Ya Basta!” they simultaneously took over seven towns, many thousands of acres of land that had been stolen from them, and used the time in the City Hall of San Cristobal de Las Casas to destroy the fabricated property titles to much of the land in the region. The taking back of their land was an integral part of the refusal of a history of repression and domination. But it is not only a refusal, it is a rejection of the past together with an opening, a yes, many yeses, as they say, where the construction of new autonomous communities and relationships has now been under construction for over 25 years. The Zapatistas now control approximately the northeast half of Chiapas, Mexico. This territory is divided into five regions, called Caracoles. Within each Caracol are several municipalities, the number varying in each. Each municipality has its own autonomous governance, the Juntas de Buen Gobierno (as opposed to the Mal Gobierno of the State). These are directly democratic consensus-​based forms of governance with a focus on the autonomous projects in each region, from the schools, health clinics, cooperative work on the land to the women’s groups.

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  15 This, regional autonomy and self-​governance, is precisely what the Zapatistas were preparing for over a decade, before they “came out” to the world. Different than the myth that they just emerged from the jungle, they are clear that this emergence, often referred to as an insurrection, was growing for decades before hand, waiting for the right moment. The insurrection was not a declaration of war, as was often also written by mainstream journalists, but an invitation to new social creation by way of self-​defense. Something one hears echoed in the voices of movement protagonists ever since. The Zapatistas made radio announcements for days after arriving in San Cristobal inviting people over Mexico to do the same. Not as a declaration to join them, but an invitation to rebellion in each of their specific locations. To open their own crack in history –​as they also say –​ referring to this breaking open of new ways of being while still in the midst of capitalism and repression. They did not and do not demand that the state recognize them –​they exist as they are and know who they are. They do not accept aid from local or national government(s), but instead create their own means of survival, and while not without challenges, it is with a new dignity. Argentina: Que Se Vayan Todos! –​MTDs and recuperated workplaces On 19 and 20 December 2001, an economic crisis, precipitated by years of unprecedented privatization, came to a head. When the government of Argentina froze people’s bank accounts, one of a long series of escalating acts that hurt the population in the name of the economy, people no longer were silent. First one person and then another, then hundreds and thousands went into the streets. People were not organized by any political party, union, or formal grouping; they merely saw their neighborhoods out in the streets, banging on pots and pans. People moved together and began to sing, not a specific chat around a policy, but a song that was a total break with all that had been –​they sang, que se vayan todos, que no quede ni uno solo (they all must go, not even one should remain), and they sang it again and again, day after day and night after night. The first two days are what are known as the 19th and 20th and are referred to as such –​seen as a breaking point in the history of Argentina. And it worked. They forced out four consecutive governments. Rather than forming political parties or trying to take over the now totally delegitimized state, people came together and formed assemblies in their neighborhoods, took over workplaces, and those unemployed neighborhoods that were organized exploded with more people and projects –​along with new movements emerging in the neighborhoods, from media and art collectives to popular kitchens. While some of the movements have shrunk numerically, the form of organizing inspired in the wake of the popular rebellion continues. Many now refer to themselves as Hijos (children) of the 19th and 20th [of December], meaning that they organize in non-​hierarchical ways, seeking horizontalidad and autonomy from the state and formal/​traditional institutions of power, as was exemplified in the days and months after the popular rebellion. This is seen

16  Marina Sitrin especially with the movements in defense of the earth, from those resisting the mines and deforestation in the north to the assemblies preventing Monsanto from constructing a seed-​ processing plant near Cordoba, to women and mothers fighting the contamination of their water and land. The forms continue and are almost instinctive as many say –​the state is not the forum from which to make change –​it must be done from below, horizontally. Recuperated workplaces in Argentina and beyond One of the most “successful” of the newer movements is the recuperated workplaces. Successful both in a traditional social movements framework, as well as in less social scientifically measurable forms, such as dignity, affect, and changed subjectivity. Rather than face the closure of a workplace, workers come together, with the support of people in the neighborhood and community and occupy and recuperate it, as will be described. There are currently over 350 recuperations in Argentina, having begun after the economic crisis in 2001 and a few dozen in Uruguay and other parts of Latin America. Since 2011 the phenomenon has spread to Europe, including Italy, France, Greece, and Turkey. There are a few important elements to the movements, and ones that distinguish them significantly from occupied workplaces, sit down strikes and worker cooperatives. First, in the language of recuperated and workplaces. In Spanish recuperar is used to indicate that these are workplaces that have been taken back; the implication is that they are the workers –​it is a direct challenge to private property. Distinct from an occupation with demands on the owner, or a cooperative that sets out to make all equal owners of a new endeavor, a recuperation takes property that is seen as something that should be collective and puts it in the hands of the workers. There is no demand. They use the slogan of the landless movement in Brazil –​“Occupy, Resist, Produce.” The occupation is only as a means to restart production, under workers’ self-​management. Workers are not demanding of the state or former owners to reopen with new regulations or policies –​they are doing it themselves. Another important aspect of the recuperations is that they organize horizontally, both the assemblies and decision-​making processes and with equal pay remuneration. This is true of more than 90% of the recuperations in Argentina, most all in other parts of Latin America and the dozen new workplace take-​overs in Europe. The use of the language of workplaces is also important. While some of the recuperations are factories, many are other sorts of workplaces, with the people involved identifying as workers, but not necessarily of the industrial sort, so for example, ranging from metal, ceramic, and print shops to medical clinics, newspapers, a hotel, and restaurants. Real democracy movements “Everywhere is Taksim! Everywhere is resistance!” and “Come, come whoever you are!” were some of the main slogans in the early days of the movement in

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  17 Turkey. In Brazil, only weeks later, hundreds of thousands began mobilizing throughout the country, many chanting, “No Party Represents Me!,” and from these mass mobilizations, people also began to gather in city neighborhoods and towns, forming horizontal assemblies, discussing both what is wrong in society and what they can do. In Bosnia, Moscow, and Portugal before that, the slogans were “They Can’t Represent Us” and “|They Can’t even Imagine Us”, and then throughout the United States the slogan was, “We are the 99%”, and in Spain, the first movement after Egypt and Tunisia, they exclaimed, “Real Democracy Now!” And the beginning, the first, was the exclamation of no, of refusal, with the “Kefaya!” (enough!) in Egypt, recalling the “Ya Basta!” in Chiapas, Mexico. All of the movements used space similarly to create these new relationships, first in the occupation and recuperation of large parks and plazas, and then in neighborhoods and small towns. None are traditional social movements that have “claims” and “demands,” that once met will placate the movement. These are movements about reclaiming our relationships to one another, reclaiming space, and reinventing ways of being. There is no one demand that can answer the mobilizations, it is not for “rights” as much as for new ways of conceiving society. And with these new relationships is also a new sense of time, as a song that emerged in the early days in Turkey sings –​with musical backdrop of spoons and forks on dishes and pots (as with the cacerolazo in Argentina in 2001) –​“come, come, slowly slowly, the ground is still wet.” Also reminding one of the Zapatistas speaking of “walking we ask questions, and we walk slow since we are going far.” On newness No movement is ever entirely new, and the claim to newness here is not intended to mean that these various forms of organization are new in and of themselves, but rather, that taken together they form a new phenomenon, that I believe societies in movement help to capture. Pandemic mutual aid –​COVID time In addition, this chapter explores the new networks of mutual aid, solidarity, and care that have emerged around the world in response to the COVID-​ 19 pandemic, and through describing them, often using the voices of those organizing on the ground, argues that within these day-​to-​day relationships of care we often see societies in movement. This phenomenon is linked to the past 20 years of horizontal, autonomous, and affective (care and trust-​based) forms of organizing, which has been striving to prefigure a new society in the shell of the old, as described in the earlier sections. As with many prefigurative movements, they generally do not come from people organizing with a plan to change society or even people who have been involved in political organizing, but arise from necessity, and in that need find that the most useful –​and most

18  Marina Sitrin empowering and enjoyable –​way of organizing is horizontally, sharing power and creating space for equal participation and mutual care. To write or talk about this current historical moment is to hold a lot of things together at once. There has been a constant overarching fear, a fear that is collective and something we, people living today, have not experienced at this level of collectivity. And, while yes, we have all been in the same terrible storm that is COVID-​19, we are not all in the same boat. Structural inequality shows itself in crisis and disaster, and this one is revealing all the ugliness and systemic oppressions and inequalities most all of our societies were built upon, that privilege the very few, and try and pit the rest of us against one another –​ locally, regionally, and globally. And, as this crisis deepens and reveals all that is oppressive and intentionally divisive in the systems we live under, it also opens a new space –​the crisis and inability of governments to meet people’s needs create a vacuum that people have been not only filling but going beyond. In towns, cities, and villages, all over the world, people are reaching out and helping one another, door to door, with friendship and neighborhood groups, to networks and larger evolving networks of networks, to meet people’s daily survival needs, including social and emotional needs, finding ways to get food and medicine to people, and also break solitude, find connections, and create new ways of relating. And, in the creation of these networks, new relationships have emerged that are rethinking how our necessities are distributed and organized, as well as how it could be different going forward. It is unclear how many millions of people are and have been involved in these various networks globally, and it is important we hold the sheer number of people in our minds when thinking about how we might restructure society –​just how many people are ready to organize beyond the current institutions and structures that we have, such as FEMA in the US and other such disaster agencies globally. I co-​edited a book with over a dozen, mostly women, from around the world (Sitrin & Colectiva Sembrar, 2020). We did not begin the project as co-​editors but found in the process of working together that it was a collective story, vision, and collaboration –​ not dissimilar from the networks and groups whose voices we were striving to facilitate. In a matter of a few months, a handful of people reached out to another handful of friends and political collaborators, from various parts of the globe. We, the collective that conducted and compiled the interviews for Pandemic Solidarity, found, as with societies in movement, that it is almost always women leading and facilitating these processes, even if they were not always the ones to step forward first for an interview. The interviews drawn upon were collected as a part of this book project. I did not conduct these interviews myself, but as a part of Colectiva Sembrar, the collective we became in putting the book together, helped to edit them and put them together in the collection, Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid during the COVID 19 Crisis, published within months by Pluto Books, still in 2020.

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  19 Below I explore, using the experiences and voices of those organizing around the globe in response to the COVID crisis, what some of the mutual aid networks have been doing and how they reflect on this doing. I conclude with an examination of prefigurative societies in movement and argue that these networks are part of a growing phenomenon of process and means focused movements, ones that are about developing horizontal and affective (care and love-​based) relationships, rather than demand and institutionally focused social movements. While each of the regions selected below has a wide variety of articulations of their meanings, internally, from within the networks, I have taken a bit of liberty in using a few key interview selections to demonstrate areas consistent with the newer prefigurative societies in movement, such as affect, changing social relationships, anti-​capitalist and/​or institutional powers, and horizontalism. I need to clarify that these are my interpretations of meaning, and I was not the person who conducted the interviews, so any mistaken interpretations are mine. In the chapter on Turkey, authored by Seyma Özdemir, the interviewees responded collectively, as networks, not individuals, reflecting already their practices of non-​hierarchical organizing and shared leadership. Below is a reflection from the Kadıköy Solidarity Network in Istanbul. Their reflections speak to the changing subjectivities that arise in horizontal networks of solidarity and mutual aid, and how it is a clear break from relations that the state and institutions of power facilitate. Solidarity makes people feel incredible emotions nowadays. My phone number is one of the contact numbers on posters. We hear this sentence many, many times: “You reminded us that we are human beings!” I heard this both from those who have resources to share and those who are in need. This is so real! Solidarity makes us human beings indeed! People calling me, especially the ones 80–​90 years old, tell me that they would like to see my face when these days are over, and meet over a coffee. Yes, I reply, “We will definitely meet one day.” “The system, the state that you pay taxes to want to get rid of you, leave you to death … However, there are others who care about you, who stick by you in solidarity without any expectation. Then you start feeling like a society … You start realizing that you are in the same boat, whether young or old, employed or unemployed, health worker, baker, as ones who have been left to their own destiny. You realize that you are stronger together and you must act collectively!” (Özdemir, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, pp. 28–​29). Nancy Piñeiro facilitated the below interview with teachers in Mendoza, in the chapter she co-​authored on Argentina. In so many places around the world, teachers are and were the ones who began to organize first, knowing the needs in the neighborhoods and communities. In the case of Argentina, it was declared illegal to organize support outside state institutions, and yet, the teachers did. And the way in which they did this was horizontally, with a focus on care and support of the physical person as well as emotional and artistic –​ feeding the soul.

20  Marina Sitrin So many people offered their help, some of them are artists (and they don’t have money to spare! On the contrary). We asked them if they could send us songs for the families, the other fundamental aspect of sustenance, which is art. It became a spontaneous virtual network where some are sending us lullabies, beautiful, tender, caring. Each teacher selects and decides what to send and to whom, it’s not just about sending stuff. It’s about feeding with art, fostering tenderness. (Piñeiro, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, p. 239) How these affective relationships can then shift perceptions of one another was seen in the conversations Debarati Roy had with network participants and observers in India. She spoke with Ayantika, from Kolkata, West Bengal, who reflected on a number of networks and areas of solidarity. In one such reflection she spoke of how large segments of Indian society stigmatize hijras (perceived as a third gender). Ayantika shared, we generally encounter hijras in public settings –​such as when we see them boisterously dancing and singing while asking for money on a train or blessing a wedding. … and the very sight of a hijra would cause discomfort and fear in many people (Roy, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, p. 95) She then spoke of the role of hijras in supporting the solidarity efforts, bringing food, supplies, and other material aid to centers. In this context, she found that people were open, accepting and shifting their preconceived notions and prejudices. In South Korea, chapter author Ji Young Shin manifests the solidarity about which she writes, as she travelled throughout South Korea, during the height of the pandemic, as we were still learning about it, to gather stories and stand with movements of disability rights. Her chapter, “Standing in Solidarity with Those Who Must Refuse to Keep Social Distance: Disability Activism in South Korea” (2020), goes into detail on the conditions suffered by people with various disabilities, and what it means when there is a lockdown. People who survived because of the support they received from those able to move about were no longer coming, isolation and desperation took hold, and individuals and groups refused, came together, and as Pak Kyŏngsŏk told Shin, “Say no to social distancing. Although we’d have to keep physical distance, we must socially stick together and stand in solidarity!.” People not only refused, but then also held demonstrations to bring attention to the conditions people with disabilities faced, and quoting from the rally, she shared, We have gathered here again today, as if we had never been discriminated against, as if we had never lost hope … We felt so much pain as we saw on the news the patients dying behind the closed doors of psychiatric wards …

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  21 We are all standing here today because we fought our way out, and were able to come out the other end. (Shin, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, p. 71) It was only because of these brave acts of mutual aid that people survived. The above two examples are often seen in times of collective action, where the biases we are taught by mainstream society shift as we learn that we have more in common with one another than with those institutions and structures teaching us these divisions. While this phenomenon is not new in the history of movements and action, the placing of importance on this shift and discussing it as a part of what is powerful and central in movement is a part of what brings together the larger landscape of societies in movement. Similarly, not only how we see one another changes in movement and in times of crisis but entire groups and networks with whom we have had differences, historical, political, and otherwise, can shift and new solidarities emerge. This is the case with Southern Africa, as Boaventura Monjane reflects in his chapter entitled, “Confronting State Authoritarianism: Civil Society and Community-​Based Solidarity in Southern Africa” (2020). In particular, he speaks to the new spaces of solidarity and alliance building that have opened up during the pandemic. With very few exceptions, civil society groups are not in the habit of working together on common agendas. This is true in Mozambique as it is in Zimbabwe and South Africa. For example, in South Africa, an attempt to articulate civil society groups from various sectors –​such as the C19 People’s Coalition, with more than 300 organizations –​was attempted in the period following the abolition of apartheid. As Kelly G. explains, “There has been post-​apartheid attempts coalition building. None of them has really worked. Often they fall apart because there was not something specific to work on. What is most interesting about this coalition is that almost organically, out of the program of action, it is the organic emergence of working groups around particular issues … So there is something about the time of the crisis and the possibility that the coalition has afforded to have people to sit down and actually work together regardless of their differences. The kinds of relationships that have emerged out of that have been very important.” (Monjane, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, pp. 110–​111) In the chapter on Turtle Island, co-​author carla bergman, spoke with Klee Benally (Diné́/​Navajo), a volunteer with Tá́ala Hooghan Infoshop and Kinlani/​ Flagstaff Mutual Aid, as well as a writer, musician, and filmmaker. In their conversation, Klee makes clear the break from capitalist relations in their organizing, as well as visioning beyond forms of power and exploitation endemic to capitalism. He points to the historical as well as current rejection of these

22  Marina Sitrin forms of relating, highlighting care and shared power –​going beyond capitalism in practice and theory –​a theory-​based practice. To begin, he describes how these practices are not “new”. The idea of collective care and support, of ensuring the well-​being of all our relations in non-​hierarchical voluntary association, and taking direct action has always been something that translated easily for me. That’s how I was raised. T’áá hwó’ ají t’éego means if it is going to be, it is up to you. No one will do it for you. We also have a Diné philosophy rooted in Kvé, or our familial relations, which means that no one would ever be left to fend for themselves, we are all relatives in some way so we have to care for each other. We built these understandings into Táala Hooghan Infoshop from the beginning. And later, We’re organizing with the vision that these efforts have the power to make capitalism and colonialism irrelevant. We are actively establishing interventions to ensure that these systems don’t recuperate. To that end we’ve established an Indigenous Mutual Aid network (www.indi​geno​usmu​ tual​aid.org) to build connections through and beyond this crisis. … We want to radically redistribute resources and power but we also don’t want to be burdened by leftist political baggage. (bergman, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, pp. 188–​189) Similar to the reflections above, by Klee Benally above, The Lena Modotti Brigade, in Milan, Italy, also discusses this historical moment and the needs to go beyond the state. Eleanor Finley spoke with them about their organizing for the chapter she authored on Italy. The Lena Modotti Brigade is a neighborhood-​based network that distributes food, medicine, and supplies to home-​bound vulnerable families. They did not begin organizing with the conclusions below, but came to them in the process of working together. The experience of the brigades must be a turning point, an impetus for reflection by everyone about all of the struggles we’ve fought until now. The state has taken everything from us over the last years [healthcare, public education funding, etc] and it has been totally absent during this moment of emergency. Only the work of solidarity has helped the poorest people. The lowest classes are the ones are paying for what the government hasn’t been able to do. The ones who do this work are solidarity people [persone solidale] like us who understood the situation and entered the field to help –​even though it is risking our lives. (Finley, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, p. 153)

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  23 A question that arises for me, and perhaps many of us, is if these horizontal mutual aid networks that arise in times of crisis are indeed movements, and if so, then how do we understand them in the lexicon of movements. The concept of societies in movement is useful here, as it reflects, as it sounds, groupings of people and communities who come together and move –​to oppose a dam, a pipeline, police brutality, and racism in the neighborhood, people that come together not because they have been mobilized or are a part of a movement or group but because they have to move –​because standing still is not an option –​silence is no longer an option. These people and societies in movement are not the same as our understandings of traditional social movements where people are mobilized for or against something or someone, with demands on people or institutions in power to remedy the situation, but people who come together because that is the only place to go –​that is the only place to look –​at one another –​and so, horizontally. And from there we make decisions together. In crisis, time after time, institutions are non-​responsive, or not able to respond as they are not directly on the ground. Their hierarchical structures get in the way of their ability to respond quickly and in a way that meets people’s needs. It is not so much that people choose autonomy or horizontality because they think it is better theoretically, but because in practice it is necessary and creates the most affective relationships –​as well as effective practices. As the interview with the Ataşehir Solidarity Network in Turkey reflects, what really matters is not the state, it is the people living together … people can claim agency and have the power to create solutions to their problems without a state, a governing power above, of course in a local level. We say that another world is possible, so we are now building that political culture, the prototypes of that possibility in this process of pandemic. This is a historical moment. It is a moment that demonstrates the inability of governing. This is actually becoming an agent. This exists in our culture, but the system pushes you to forget it, the system tells you that we will give you orders, what to do and how to do it. If there is any problem, you won’t raise your voice and question so much, and you won’t dare to search for solutions with the ones around you. But now people remember that, well, this is what a society is, this is what we were before. (Özdemir, in Sitrin and Colectiva Sembrar, 2020, p. 22) The influence of the movements on one another goes without question, as does the role of prior movements. What this looks like and how it happens is an entirely different question. Many used the language and categories of diffusion or contagion to describe these relationships; since so many were not direct, or were more in the imagination of the movement participants than grounded in actual experience or readings of history, it becomes unclear where direct experience and generational historical memory meet and diverge. Many

24  Marina Sitrin movements identified with what others were doing at the time and replicated their experiences, or as they imagine their experiences, and this is a sort of resonance. And perhaps it is something much bigger. Without discounting the above, perhaps what is going on globally is most of all a massive response to a system that does not represent people, identified both as states and international financial institutions, together with the failure of a model of change that says we need to take over and change these institutions from the inside, and thus the result is massive movements of people looking to one another, using direct democracy and seeing power as something to construct from below, and keep below. What is taking place perhaps then is a new way of doing politics, creating a new theory around which it is organized. Note 1 Charles Tilly, Doug McAdam, and Sidney Tarrow are three of the most important and widely read US contemporary social movement theorists. In 2001 they together published the book Dynamics of Contention. It is from this book’s introduction that the below definition is taken. By contentious politics we mean: episodic, public, collective interactions among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants. (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, 2001, p. 5)

Bibliography Dirik, D. (2016). Building democracy without a state. Roar Magazine, Revive la Commune!, Issue 1, (https://​roar​mag.org/​magaz​ine/​build​ing-​democr​acy-​with​out-​a-​ state/​) Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch. AK Press. Federici, S. (2018). Reenchanting the world: Feminism and the politics of the commons. PM Press. Holloway, J. (2010). Crack capitalism. Pluto Press. Maeckelbergh, M. (2009). The will of the many: How the alterglobalization movement is changing the face of democracy. Pluto Press. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. and Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of contention. Cambridge University Press. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. and Tilly, C. (2007). Comparative perspectives on contentious politics. In Lichbach, M. and Zuckerman, A. (Eds.), Comparative politics: Rationality, culture, and structure: Advancing theory in comparative politics. Cambridge University Press, pp. 260–​290. Roos, J. and Oikonomakis, L. (2013). We are everywhere! The autonomous roots of the real democracy movement. Paper Delivered at 7th Annual ECPR Conference: Delivered ‘Comparative Perspectives on the New Politics of Dissent.’ Sitrin, M. (2006). Horizontalism: Voices of popular power in Argentina. AK Press.

Non-hierarchical and care-based forms of organization  25 Sitrin, M. (2012). Everyday revolutions: Horizontalism and autonomy in Argentina. Zed Books. Sitrin, M. and Colectiva Sembrar (Eds.). (2020). Pandemic solidarity: Mutual aid during the COVID 19 crisis. Pluto Press. Zibechi, R. (2003). Genealogía de la revuelta. Argentina: la sociedad en movimiento. Nordan-​Letra Libre. Zibechi, R. (2012). Territories in resistance: A cartography of Latin American social movements. AK Press.

3 Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece in times of crisis Breaking with capitalocentric fantasy by prefiguring futures of solidarity Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras

Introduction Crisis today is an everyday event, the daily bread for our news media and a focus of much academic analysis. Whether it is a financial, refugee, climate, obesity, ecological, waste, housing, or species extinction crisis, to name just some, it seems that crisis is the new norm. We are wired up to expect our next serving. But curiously, we also expect to survive crisis. From wherever it springs, hope fosters a belief that there is a future and that there are pathways toward it. While economists and governments continue to mouth the ‘growth is good’ pathway, on the ground people are experimenting with other ways forward. (Gibson-​Graham, 2014, p. 151)

Drawing on the literature of prefigurative politics, diverse economies, and psychoanalysis, our chapter endeavours to highlight key aspects of new ethical practices in grassroots welfare provisioning. These developments emerged in parallel and, at times, intersected with developments at the central political scene during an extended period in which the austerity agenda remained the main point of political confrontation. The struggles that emerged in that period revealed and challenged the function and reproduction of logics of neoliberal capitalism, including their expansion into the sphere of welfare and social care. As we will show, however, they were not simply defensive responses, nor did they merely redirect their demands to the realm of institutional politics. Rather, such initiatives have been productive of new forms of social life and organization, prefiguring in this way alternative institutions and relations in the present. Within a context of crisis, Social Solidarity Clinics and Pharmacies are indicative of the material hardships and social exclusion prompted by the austerity-​driven dismantling of social welfare rights and access to the Greek National Health System. At the same time, they allow us to discern DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-3

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  27 practices and visions that do not simply contest hegemonic politics but rather reimagine society through experimentation with new forms of social organization (Roussos & Malamidis, 2021). To set the context to our discussion, we shall begin with a brief presentation of crisis-​ridden Greece. We then present our theoretical framework, bringing together prefigurative politics, diverse economies, and fantasy, to capture the character of the responses to the hegemony of neoliberal austerity. Through this lens, we proceed to discuss one of the largest solidarity clinics that emerged during the crisis, the Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko (MCCH),1 which we take as a paradigmatic case of grassroots welfare provisioning. Our analysis and reflection are also informed by fieldwork research, involving eight semi-​structured in-​ depth interviews with MCCH volunteers conducted in August and September 2018 (Blee & Taylor, 2002; Giugni, 2013) as well as by document analysis of announcements, reports, and other campaigning material (Mattoni, 2014, p. 27). The material from the interviews and documents was manually transcribed and processed through repeated readings and thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Keller, 2012). Context: Austerity, crisis, and inequalities in healthcare The global financial crisis, as well as its handling, had a devastating impact on many Southern European economies and societies. Consecutive Greek governments between 2010 and 2015 signed and implemented with ‘the troika’ (European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund) three bailout agreements, receiving a total of €326bn. The reforms detailed in and required by the three Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in exchange for financial assistance elevated austerity into the major principle and goal of economic governance (Vassalos, 2018). As a result, Greek governments introduced measures of government downsizing (wages and pensions cuts, leaning out of the public sector, curtailing of welfare state provisions) and rolling privatization of state assets (airports, public highways and railways, energy, etc.) (European Commission, 2013, pp. 25–​27). Of particular importance for our account are the constitutional and legal changes in social welfare provision, which were framed as economic necessity and were accomplished through severe austerity measures. As key pillars of the EU’s ‘Structural Reform Support Programme’ (SRSP), labour market and social welfare policy (mainly healthcare and pensions) have been at the epicentre of all three bailout programmes. Labour and pension reforms were amongst the priorities of EU’s general structural reform approach to restore competitiveness and growth, as stated in the ECFIN Economic Brief (Canton et al., 2014, p. 1). However, in the case of Greece (and in Portugal too), the profound retrenchment in public health spending was also explicitly highlighted as a major bailout clause (Petmesidou et al., 2014, p. 338), and then specifically addressed as a crucial component of the country’s fiscal consolidation efforts (European Commission, 2012, p. 36).

28  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras The austerity reforms led to unprecedented cuts in salaries and pensions, public services and welfare provision, social protection, and labour rights with an immediate impact in the day-​to-​day life and livelihood of millions of people. When it comes to healthcare specifically, the implementation of austerity started as part of the general cuts in public expenditures, in which there was a significant shrinking of the public share in the total health expenditure, down 30 percent from 2011 to 2012 (Teloni & Adam, 2018). This was followed by a curtailing of the public budget for drugs and medication, with an estimated fall of 32 percent (Economou et al., 2015, p. 14). At the same time, such budgetary reforms were followed with policy changes that required from patients to pay contributions of €5 for visits to outpatient clinics and a €5 fee for every hospital admission (Karanikolos et al., 2013; Petmesidou, 2019). Similarly, the austerity governance of healthcare prevented hospitals from hiring new personnel and purchasing medical equipment or maintaining their infrastructures (Economou, 2012). Hospital workers and personnel, mainly doctors and nurses, whose salary had been cut by 40 percent, were forced to work increased hours to cover the extra needs (Simou & Koutsogeorgou, 2014). From protest to infrastructures of solidarity Immediately after the announcement, in spring 2010, that Greece had requested a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, people and activists took to the streets. In the ensuing period, the country experienced a wave of popular mobilizations and struggles against the austerity policies adopted, as well as the authoritarian ways in which these were introduced and enforced. More than 20,000 protest events took place between 2010 and 2014 (Diani & Kousis, 2014), with the 20 largest bringing from 25,000 to 500,000 participants to the streets (Kousis & Kanellopoulos, 2013). One third of the population took part in at least one protest event, with almost 20 percent of the participants engaging for the first time in protests and strikes (Rüdig & Karyotis, 2013). Beyond the traditional protest repertoires, the movement of Aganaktismenoi (Indignants) in Spring and Summer 2011 engaged in the occupation of entire squares and played a crucial role in attracting participants into political action (Karaliotas, 2017; Roussos, 2019). The emergence of collective struggles was not exhausted in the above events, though. Rather, by catalyzing changes in traditional protest politics, this early anti-​austerity protest-​wave soon gave rise to an expanding network (more than 400 groups in 2016) of grassroots initiatives in various areas of everyday social and economic conduct, addressing material and everyday needs through direct democratic processes and an ethos of solidarity (Arampatzi, 2018; Malamidis, 2020). Such social activity took two broad forms: (1) alternative forms of provision of services against the shrinking and withdrawal of the welfare state through mutual support and new forms of volunteering (in the form of health and medical provision, defence from eviction, collective kitchens, housing, support for groups in need, notably including migrants and refugees, etc.);

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  29 (2) economic projects engaging with alternative forms of labour organization and market exchange (working cooperatives, occupied factories, bartering, markets ‘without middlemen’, producer collectives, local currencies, time banks, etc.) (Amanatidou et al., 2021; Papadaki & Kalogeraki, 2018). Despite the distinction, it should be noted that practices from the two categories intersect to a large extent, and even form common networks. For instance, some cooperatives played a key role in hosting medical clinics;2 and most of these initiatives have a shared parallel interest in fostering and expanding democratic organization, for example, with the participation of all members in decision-​ making. Our case study falls into the first category, that of welfare provisioning and care, and particularly in primary healthcare provision. The rising number of uninsured and financially deprived citizens due to unemployment and wage cuts, combined with the introduction of fees for outpatient clinic visits, left almost 2.5 million people without access to medical care (Economou et al., 2015). As an attempt to address the widening exclusions from the Greek National Health System, a constellation of Social Solidarity Clinics and Pharmacies (SSCPs) emerged, set up by participants in the anti-​ austerity movement. Forty SSCPs in different cities and neighbourhoods across Greece were providing free of charge primary health and pharmaceutical care services for all (Teloni & Adam, 2018). With solidarity and self-​management at the epicentre of their day-​to-​day operation, such projects involved healthcare professionals, activists, and other volunteers without medical expertise, and played a key role in tackling the exclusionary effects of austerity in public healthcare provision (Vlachokyriakos et al., 2021). Turning to our main case study, MCCH as part of this constellation of social clinics was inextricably linked to the anti-​austerity struggles, grounded upon collective action and solidarity. The interplay between the two is pointedly depicted in the words of one of our interviewees: ‘whether you were entering [the clinic] as completely newbie or you had experience of previous mobilizations, it was through the collective processes in organizing the clinic or protesting against austerity cuts that solidarity truly sinks in’ (Int. 5). Launched in the autumn of 2011 as an initiative of a group of participants in the Aganaktismenoi squares, MCCH had 280 members in total, half of them doctors and healthcare staff. During the first years of its operation (2011–​2015), as the clinic’s data demonstrate, MCCH provided its free-​for-​all services to more than 41,000 people (MCCH, 2015a). After the 2015 elections, due to legislation changes implemented by the SYRIZA-​ANEL coalition government that lifted most barriers for uninsured people in accessing publicly provided care, the number of monthly visits started to drop. They remained, however, in high levels (370–​500) up until the start of the Covid-​19 pandemic (MCCH, 2019). Capitalocentric fantasy and crisis To get a better sense of the character and significance of such initiatives –​ especially in the context of the economic crisis in which they appear –​we start

30  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras with some theoretical reflections from the perspective of ‘diverse economies’, introduced by feminist geographers Gibson-​Graham and, in particular, the critique of what they call ‘capitalocentrism’: the hegemonic understanding of all types of economic practices and identities as ‘fundamentally the same as (or modelled upon) capitalism, or as being deficient or substandard imitations; as being opposite to capitalism; as being the complement of capitalism; as existing in capitalism’s space or orbit’ (Gibson-​Graham, 2006a, p. 6). Capitalocentrism, therefore, is not only at the core of discourses that present capitalism as unavoidable; it also permeates much of critical anti-​capitalist discourses (political, activist, as well as academic), to the extent that their articulation also evolves around capitalism as a master signifier and thus reinforces its power and omnipresence. Capitalocentrism is a significant obstacle to the building of alternatives, since it prevents us from recognizing that the economy, rather than homogeneous, is actually quite diverse and heterogeneous, comprising practices that are already ‘different’ from capitalism even when operating alongside it. A series of examples can be mentioned: household labour, producer cooperatives, volunteering and the third sector more broadly, family and childcare, bartering, etc. Although such practices account for a very significant part of economic activity, they are typically excluded from our understanding of ‘the economy’ (Gibson-​Graham, 2006a, p. xiii). Our failure to recognize the heterogeneity of ‘the economy’ seriously limits our economic imagination, including our capacity to imagine new practices ‘beyond capitalism’, at least in ways that are different from ‘socialism’ as traditionally understood (i.e., the abolition and replacement of capitalism through direct confrontation). This realization calls for a ‘reading for difference’ (Gibson-​Graham, 2006b, pp. xxxi–​xxxii), that is, an attentiveness and affirmative stance towards the various social and economic practices at the margins of capitalism that can inspire our imagination of counter-​hegemonic visions. Not that this is an easy task. Capitalocentrism defines our relationship with the economy to an extent that renders attempts to move beyond it very demanding for subjects. To grasp this, several diverse economy and other critical economy scholars have turned to psychoanalysis (Byrne & Healy, 2006; Glynos, 2012). Bringing psychoanalysis into discussions about the economy may seem counterintuitive at first. After all, the economy is typically understood as characterised by ‘hard’ materiality; it is about remuneration, redistribution, investment, debt, etc., all of which are measurable and ‘objective’. We should not miss, though, another important aspect, namely that individuals build attachments to the economy that can be quite complex. Indeed, we can say that the economy constitutes a terrain of identification, including identification with the subject-​positions produced and sustained by economic structures, as well as economic visions inextricably linked to ideals of a fair and just society. In this context, the concept of fantasy has been used to capture the affective and ideological force of the subjects’ relationship to specific social norms and practices (in the field of economy and elsewhere) (Glynos & Howarth, 2007, pp. 110–​132).

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  31 Fantasy characterises over-​attachments and comprises potent narratives whose dual function is to reproduce idealized or utopian images of social practices and, at the same time, provide an account for the non-​achievement of these idealized vision by blaming someone for it. One important implication of fantasy for a politics oriented towards the production of postcapitalist alternatives is that fantasy conceals the fact that those practices and visions we are attached to are contingent and ultimately represent certain possibilities amongst others. In other words, fantasy conceals that things could be otherwise or, for diverse economy scholars, that alternatives are possible. Capitalocentric fantasy, therefore, has the ideological effect of distorting, narrowing down, or even shutting down attempts to explore other ways of acting and organizing communities. In relation to the organization and economy of health and social care, Jason Glynos (2014) draws on two distinct and dominant forms of fantasy characterising the neoliberal era. First, fantasies of ‘self-​sufficiency’, formed around an ideal of individual self-​interest and self-​reliance, which provide justification and support for market logics as the key principle for governance and distribution. On the contrary, fantasies of the ‘Caring Other’ run in the opposite direction and are characterised by a desire for reliance on an external figure (most commonly, the government) as someone who is always to guarantee our welfare (Chang & Glynos, 2011). Although these ideals are in conflict when seen from a normative lens, their character qua fantasies also have something to tell us about what they may share (Glynos, 2014, p. 10). Namely, their function as narratives reinforcing a sense of closure or fullness for subjects. This diagnosis strongly resonates with Gibson-​Graham’s account of capitalocentrism and offers valuable insights for its critique. To the extent that the two fantasies together draw a picture of healthcare as something that can only be the result of either competition amongst (self-​interested) individuals or the (paternalistic) protection of the state, their joint effect reinforces capitalocentric logics: the market/​state dichotomy that such fantasies give rise to appears as exhaustive of all possibilities regarding health and welfare. An economic crisis of the kind we have described here constitutes a moment of dislocation for such fantasies. As such, it provides a suitable context for demonstrating its operation, while it also presents an opportunity for detachment and making alternative ways visible –​that is, an opportunity to challenge the hegemony of capitalocentrism. Of course, any dislocation of fantasy is a deeply disturbing experience since it shakes the guarantees of our shared sense of reality and way of life. This is why detachment, and the seeking of new attachments, is not an easy choice. In Freud’s (2001, p. 244) words, ‘people never willingly abandon a libidinal position, not even, indeed, when a substitute is already beckoning to them’. Indeed, subjects are much more likely to turn to resentment and scapegoating of figures deemed responsible for the non-​fulfilment of fantasmatic ideals, rather than to affirm contingency. The intensity and likelihood of resentment is analogous to the degree of investment into fantasy narratives.

32  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras In Greece, the crisis was disturbing for both forms of fantasies described above: the state’s status as a ‘Caring Other’ was shaken, since it became incapable of guaranteeing welfare. At the same time, developments such as the decline of wages and the high rates of unemployment made the promise of ‘self-​ sufficiency’ appearing as very distant for many. Resentment was manifested in very potent ways, by rendering various groups responsible for the collective hardship. Pro-​austerity governments blamed public-​sector workers for the crisis: their (undeserved) high salaries, laziness, and inefficiency were presented as responsible for the high levels of debt, in a way that reminds of Thatcherism’s label of ‘the scroungers’. Immigrants were also a target of blame for the collapse of the welfare state and its effects, as well as for unemployment. The then Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, for instance, claimed that the lack of places in nurseries for Greek children is because of immigrant children who had occupied them (Keza, 2012). He also blamed immigrants for unemployment saying: ‘we have as many illegal immigrants as we have unemployed’ (Ta Nea Team, 2013). The grassroots experiments of the crisis period are of obvious significance against this context. As we will see in the next section, such experiments, from a normative point of view, are aimed at fighting exclusion and desperation and empowering those who have experienced them. We also show how this is achieved through the introduction of an organizational arrangement in which users and activists can shape together the governance of these initiatives through direct-​democratic assemblies. Fantasy, though, also hints to the ethical significance of such alternatives. Since social reality is always structured by fantasy, the task for anyone committed to ethical alternatives is not the elimination of fantasy, but the establishment of a different relation with it. This would involve a less invested relation with fantasy and an acceptance of the inherent fragility of social practices in general. From the perspective of the subject, this means a qualitatively different stance characterized by the acknowledgement of ‘an open future’ (Glezos, 2011, p. 162) and the adoption of an ethos of ‘becoming’ (Connolly, 2011). This process of becoming is translated in the lived experiences and relations that rewire the organization of everyday life in such experiments. It is in this context that the concept of prefiguration will allow us to explore how this ethical disposition is being defined in the everyday practices of grassroots actors. Prefiguring institutions of solidarity and care. It is not necessary to conquer the world. It is enough to make it anew. We. Today. (Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, 1996) In the previous section we have shown how neoliberal hegemony works, in part, due to the fantasy that conceals or distorts alternative possibilities. Furthermore, as we have discussed, the anger that could arise from the failings of the neoliberal capitalist project are canalized, by this very same fantasy, into looking for ‘perpetrators’ for the faults, rather than revising the ways we

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  33 have organized out collective lives. However, we have also introduced cases and examples from Greece, focusing on the MCCH, that exemplify responses to dislocation that move beyond resentment or, even, scapegoating. How then, within the framework presented, are we to understand the coming together of people and movements yearning for building from the ground that which they have lost? Could it be that fantasy, as much as it can conceal and distort the idea of alternative, can also open up the space for an ethical response to the crisis and dislocation? The term ‘prefigurative politics’ has been often deployed to characterize social movements that do not focus exclusively on voicing demands or protesting against injustice, but that also create spaces in which the set of social relations and principles of social justice and solidarity they invoke can be practiced ‘here and now’. Prefigurative politics, thus, can be read as the coming about of an ethical transformation that traverses the immediacy of capitalocentric experience and consciousness by affirming that things can be otherwise. In this sense, as we see it in our case, the new social and solidarity infrastructure developed in the space brought about dislocation keeps the rupture with capitalocentric fantasy vivid. The democratic experimentation and collective embodiment of new social relations and practices keep open the possibility of other ways forward. In the words of one of our interviewees, this appears as follows: Yes, in the first instance the social clinic is a product of struggle against the crisis and specifically the exclusions from the health system, when one day so many people had the rag of healthcare and social security pulled out from under them. But we only started from there, to create a clinic the philosophy of which is to provide health and medical care for all; independently of class, sexual orientation, nationality, race and so on. This is the kind of solidarity clinic we create. (Int. 4) The above quote captures also the spirit of prefiguration as lived social change, a form of politics that organizes in the present features of a society that is yet to come, as though it has already been materialized (Yates, 2015, p. 4). As mentioned in the previous section and the words of our interviewee above, the majority of the SSCPs that emerged during the crisis considered to be part of the anti-​austerity struggles. The announcement below, jointly issued in 2012 by five of the biggest grassroots clinics in Greece, highlights their demands as part of the broader anti-​austerity movement: The last two years, since Greece asked aid from the IMF and the implementation of the austerity policy, we have witnessed an increasing impoverishment of a large part of society […] At the health sector the implementation of the austerity policies has as an immediate effect: a) a rapid increase in the number of people who lose their right to healthcare provision due to the loss of their social insurance coverage; b) the effective abolition of free health,

34  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras even for insured citizens, the dismantling of the Greek NHS, with mergers and closures of hospitals and clinics, the huge cuts in health spending. As a first step in responding to this policy, doctors, solidarity and sensitized citizens, we have established in many cities around Greece Social Solidarity Clinics offering free primary health care and pharmacy services […] All of us, doctors and citizens in solidarity with Social Solidarity Clinics, believe that the whole society should fight to safeguard the public good of health. (SSCs-​Announcement, 2012) Similarly, all our interviewees emphasized that the MCCH has its roots in the Aganaktismenoi squares and other struggles of that period. Rakopoulos speaks about the element of ‘movementality’ in such projects as an educational frame that cultivates new ideas of belonging and everyday relatedness, thus counterposing to the neoliberal ethics ‘an egalitarian idiom where a community of equals is imagined and wherein mutual aid emerges as at once a material concern and a cosmological bond’ (Rakopoulos, 2016, p. 143). MCCH and other SSCPs have a hybrid character as community economies of care and activist organizations (Howarth & Roussos, 2022). This movement between the ‘streets’ and the institution of grassroots solidarity infrastructures carried an important implication for the latter’s organizing principles and everyday practices: For me the three core principles in the everyday operation of our clinic come from experiences of the squares or other forms of mobilization. First, we provide health and medical care to individuals from any social group without any form of discrimination. Second, we don’t accept and neither we deal with money. Anyone that wants to support us they can do it through participation or by donating medicines, equipment and stationery or other supplies. Third, and maybe the most important, is the way that the clinic is organized; its structure is horizontal, meaning that we operate in a direct democratic manner. There is no hierarchy, neither supervisors nor subordinates; there is only the general assembly in which we all participate equally, discuss, and decide everything. (Int. 4) Different thematic groups and subgroups were assigned with specific tasks such as communication, material maintenance, pharmacy organization, etc. (MCCH, 2015a). All of the groups coordinated their activities through the general assembly in which all the participants could equally participate and vote. The function of the general assembly as the ultimate decision-​making organ (common characteristic of the post-​Aganaktismenoi solidarity projects) introduced new forms of political participation and institutional conduct that enable the construction of an alternative sociality and organization in healthcare beyond the centralized bureaucratic structure of state paternalism on the one hand, and the hierarchical profit-​driven logic of the market on the

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  35 other. As a result, through their participation in the general assembly and thematic groups of the clinic, MCCH volunteers developed and shared knowledge, practiced collective judgement, and gained confidence in taking decisions for themselves. Through such involvement participants cultivated new individual and collective dispositions of direct participation, co-​ production, equity, and trust in making and organizing the provisioning of primary healthcare. Moreover, one of the first decisions of the clinic’s general assembly was the rejection of funding from political parties, NGOs, market agents, and the government. This highlights its commitment to autonomy and independence as essential values and goals; in other words, its commitment to safeguarding the ‘sovereignty’ of its assembly from profit-​driven and bureaucratic logics. […] Part of the media are confusing –​by mistake or not –​the municipal clinics –​which are now accustomed to calling themselves ‘social’ –​with various NGOs active in the field of health, as well as social structures of the state with us; the ‘Social Solidarity Clinics and Pharmacies’. So we have to make clear who we are. The SSCs and Pharmacies are autonomous, independent, self-​organized and self-​managed communities that provide voluntary and completely free primary health and pharmaceutical care services to uninsured, financially deprived and unemployed people –​Greeks and immigrants without any discrimination. They are solidarity structures that have been set up to counter austerity policies and the humanitarian crisis, and are fighting for a free and universal public health system. (SSCs & Pharmacies, 2015) The repertoires for the self-​organization and self-​management of primary healthcare have allowed SSCPs to reclaim healthcare for all, regardless of nationality, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc. This reclaiming of solidarity, cultivated within horizontal forms of social and organizational conduct, goes beyond practices usually qualified as ‘charity’: ‘for us it was an attempt towards an alternative direction, a way to reclaim healthcare provision for all, and not from a charity perspective (philanthropia) but from the perspective of solidarity. We understand this as a reciprocal social process’ (Int. 1). In the words of our interviewee, solidarity is to be distinguished from charity, the latter capturing the practices of NGOs, the church, not-​for-​profits, or private initiatives that offer support through a top-​down relationship with the ‘beneficiaries’, normalizing in this way inequality and injustice and silencing their root causes. Moreover, together with the provision of healthcare services to deprived, uninsured Greeks and immigrants, as well as wider parts of the local population, MCCH has supported a number of public hospitals by donating medicine and equipment (MCCH, 2012; MCCH, 2015b). Also, the clinic had played a crucial role in the collection and shipment missions of medical supplies and other materials in refugee camps in Greece, and in countries in war and conflict such as Palestine and Syria (MCCH, 2013; MCCH, 2014; MCCH, 2015c).

36  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras We are a community of activists and volunteers with main aim to provide primary healthcare support. In parallel, we are a community of volunteers that has sensibilities; that has a political viewpoint for numerous issues in our society, such as the environment, poverty, inequality, war, and so on, that directly or indirectly affect health. (Int. 2) Boggs defined prefigurative politics as the ‘embodiment, within the ongoing political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-​ making, culture and human experience that are the ultimate goal’ (Boggs, 1977, p. 7). It is through such a commitment to action for mutual aid and the embodiment of it that MCCH and other Solidarity Clinics and Pharmacies in the crisis-​ridden Greece composed a constructive alternative to notions of healthcare provision in neoliberal capitalism. While an outright rejection of market-​driven welfare provision is obvious in our interviews and in the discourse of SSCPs more generally, we can see more mixed, complicated, and, often, ambivalent stances towards the role of the state. For several volunteers and activists, the role and operation of SSCPs was understood as temporary, claiming that, in an ideal situation, they should vanish –​in the sense that health provision should be free and universal and exclusively offered by the state. But others express a different view that problematizes the market/​state binary: We do not aspire to become the supplement of the current healthcare system. As I told you, we report the deficiencies in the provision of healthcare; we don’t wait for them to arise so as to cover them and become the system’s crutch. We know, unfortunately, that we are far away from a social organization in which people would be able to take their health[-​care] on their own hands. We are within a system that becomes all the more inhumane. The state aspect of health is diminishing, and thus the private sector –​the private healthcare provision –​grows at the expense of public health. As such, it is very difficult for citizens to take the matter of Health in their own hands, when there are no social structures that would allow them to do so. MCCH and other SSCPs played exactly this role. Yes, to be honest, one solidarity clinic, or five, or thirty cannot cover the needs of a country of ten million citizens. However, they provide a model, and this is the crucial message, a model of social organization that could be replicated by the broader society. SSCPs and the MCCH created and continue to create a paradigm. (Int. 1) In this sense, the prefigurative politics of SSCPs might not only aid in envisioning welfare beyond the market versus state dichotomy, but also in the reimagining of health and welfare provisions in ways that extend beyond top-​down, hierarchical, and bureaucratic approaches and that is informed directly by the values of solidarity and community. Importantly, recognizing the importance of SSCPs as examples (rather than as a substitute to the welfare

Reflections on grassroots healthcare provisioning in Greece  37 state) operates as a reminder to actors of how they can use their collective strengths to defend their livelihoods and dignity: The central [issue] I believe is to not fall into the sleep that we fell before [the crisis]. We no longer have the excuse of ignorance. We know from the experience of the SSCPs that there are things that citizens and people can do on their own, without relying on the state. (Int. 2) Conclusion Grassroots struggles and practices have always been at the epicentre of debates about the character and future possibilities of radical democratic politics. Within the Greek context, heavily affected by the neoliberal austerity management of the crisis, the dispersion of grassroots politics into the field of everyday life has reinvigorated the interest of academics, activists, and other political agents on the impact of such struggles for counter-​hegemonic projects. In this short chapter, focusing on grassroots welfare provisioning and drawing reflection on the practices of SSCPs and MCCH in particular, we attempted to rethink such struggles in terms of the ethical reimaging of social relations that they enable through the prefigurative embodiment of such relations. In doing so, we first provided an account of the crisis and the neoliberal austerity measures implemented in the field of social welfare, as part of the structural adjustment programmes signed with the EU, ECC, and IMF. We then showed how early anti-​austerity mobilizations and the uprisings of the Aganaktismenoi squares gave rise to a constellation of grassroots projects in different areas of socioeconomic life. Reflecting on the concept of Capitalocentrism we sought to understand how the hegemonic discourse of the capitalist economy –​its norms, values, and ideals –​grips subjects through an ideological fantasy that limits the field of possibility in politics and the economy, thus rendering attempts to move beyond it almost unthinkable. Specifically, in thinking of the organization of health and social care we called on Chang and Glynos’s (2011) distinction between two dominant forms of fantasy and the way these characterise the neoliberal capitalist era: the market-​ oriented fantasy of ‘self-​sufficiency’, and that of the ‘Caring Other’. Seen from this perspective, in the last section of the chapter we offered an empirically informed account of grassroots responses in primary healthcare provisioning. Through an analysis of the practices and discourses of the MCCH and other SSCPs we argued that such grassroots projects have reactivated the political character of social practices and relations (tied to neoliberal capitalism) and transformed them into sites of antagonism. These struggles, we contend, contest, and change embedded relations of domination and oppression in various social fields, while prefiguring more diverse modes of care, production, decision-​ making, knowledge sharing, and so on. Rather than reproducing over-​attachments to either omnipotent

38  Konstantinos Roussos, Jimena Vazquez Garcia, and Savvas Voutyras conceptions of the individual self or to the state as an external Other, social and solidarity projects emphasise the value of relying on the collective capacities of the subjects participating in them. Furthermore, rather than being energized by a promised fullness, they openly and eagerly endorse their partial, local, experimental, and uncertain character. These alternatives represent a distinct strategy for developing counter-​hegemony which comprises an attempt to bring together a diverse ecosystem of practices and organizations in alliance against neoliberal capitalism. Prefiguration is an essential part of this strategy, since such alternatives are not directed at substituting capitalist social relations in a particular moment of refoundation of society but, rather, at reappropriating current relations with practices drawn from a society envisioned and attempting to multiply and expand those practices. Alongside the possibility of sinking deeper into the logics of fantasy and the resentful responses it commands towards dislocation, the crisis also opens up a different kind of possibility towards ethical transformation. The grassroots experiments that emerged during the economic crisis are the closest examples of such move in that they constitute material evidence for the possibility of alternative modes of living and acting. It is in that sense that we can say that these practices represent a post-​fantasmatic enjoyment of the economy (Byrne & Healy, 2006). Through collaborative engagements beyond the market and the state, the practices of solidarity projects come to radicalize and extend democratic practices into different sites of the economy and civil society. As we have shown, this involves the weaving of discourses and repertoires of social change as a part of a bottom-​up project in the making. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank the MCCH and its volunteers for kindly accepting to be interviewed, thus making this research possible. Notes 1 Writing these lines, we were informed about MCCH’s decision to close after 11 years of continuous activity. As it is mentioned in the clinic’s announcement, this decision was the only way to make sure that the principles, organizational novelties, and political character of the project will not be jeopardized. For more, see the clinic’s announcement: http://​mki-​ellini​kou.blogs​pot.com/​2022/​04/​blog-​post.html (in Greek). 2 See, for instance, the “workers’ medical clinic” operating at the self-​managed factory Vio.Me, details provided here: biom-​metal.blogspot.com/​2017/​09/​blog-​post_​1.html

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4 Collaborating for change in critical times? Alter-​political cooperativism in Thessaloniki, Greece Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis

Introduction The period after 2010 saw the emergence in Greece of a constellation of endeavours in the intentional economy (Gibson-​Graham, 2006, p. 101), that is, of projects that approach the economy as a space of political action and ethical possibility. Austerity policies prescribed as remedies to the sovereign debt crisis reduced incomes, curtailed social rights and safeguards, and upended social life. The result was an intense crisis of legitimation of the political system, which ushered in a prolonged period of political effervescence and social experimentation. A loose network of self-​organised economic endeavours emerged thus as an integral part of a growing grassroots cycle of contention. These novel cooperative enterprises, which have been active in various fields of industry, commerce, and services, saw their day-​to-​day activity not only as a means of ensuring a livelihood in a flailing economy but also, more importantly, as a hands-​on critique of capitalist relations and a proposal for an ethico-​political alternative. Self-​management and solidarity constituted central elements of their ideational framework. Today, nearly ten years after the commencement of such endeavours, the political climate in Greece is radically different. Austerity politics has been normalised, social movement activity is on the decline, and a social consensus has been reconstituted around conservative values. Despite the hostile political environment and the perpetual economic depression, many radical cooperatives are still alive and even thriving, having established their presence in their respective fields. In this chapter, we set out to examine the evolution of this recent tide of cooperative endeavours in Greece, and more specifically in the second-​largest city, Thessaloniki. Based on fieldwork with four cooperatives, we will provide a critical snapshot of actually existing intentional economies and their alter-​ political potentials, about a decade after their emergence in Greece. We will probe their potentials, their aspirations, and their contributions to wide-​ranging social transformation towards egalitarian, autonomous, plural, solidary, ecologically sustainable, and caring worlds. DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-4

Collaborating for change in critical times?  43 In our first foray into this field, in an article researched and written in 2013 (Kioupkiolis & Karyotis, 2015), we traced out the re-​invention of common goods collectively self-​ managed for the common benefit –​the commons –​through the emergence of a network of self-​organised collectives active in various fields of commerce, production, and social services. That was a response to urgent social needs under the massive economic collapse. But it constituted, also, a qualitative shift in the historical function of cooperatives and social enterprises which henceforth operated within the context of a broader resistance movement and placed an enhanced emphasis on autonomous self-​organisation, social solidarity, and networking. We focused on a few, then incipient, undertakings. Through their example, we sought to work out the logics, the potential and the prospects of such experimental forays into building new economies of autonomy, equity, and solidarity. We inquired, more specifically, whether and how commons-​based economic activity can construct a social basis for alternative ways of articulating social production, independent from capital and its prerogatives. The present survey of contemporary aspirational initiatives in the intentional cooperative economies in Greece will take up, update, and expand these inquiries, situating them further in the context of a global spread of democratic alter-​political experimentation. Democratic alter-​politics Since the 1990s, the ascendance of neoliberal rule has been accompanied by the surge of “another politics,” or alter-​politics, to use a term introduced by the anthropologist Ghassan Hage (2015). Grassroots movements, civic associations, and new citizens’ platforms, such as those of the new municipalism in Spain, have pursued new modes of politics. These break with the top-​ down, centralised, and ideological forms of political activity that often sway the state politics of the government or the party. Such alter-​politics from the grassroots also departs from typical forms of modern activism and opposition, which are bent on protest and demands from the state, and are often locked up in vanguardism, insularity, or dogmatism. Democratic politics and radical egalitarian contestation are thus reimagined and refashioned in ways that foster openness, diversity, attention to process, horizontality, prefiguration, networking, and action beyond closed identities. This alter-​politics makes up a political space distinct from that of liberal, social-​democratic or Leninist parties, but also of non-​profit civil society organisations focused on particular issues and the provision of services. Alter-​ politics is both contentious and transformative (Dixon, 2014: 4–​7, 223–​233). It champions a politics of opposition to diverse forms of domination and exploitation, from racism and colonialism to hetero-​patriarchy, neoliberal capitalism, and statist, top-​down rule, both in society at large and within social movements themselves (Dixon, 2014, pp. 73–​74). But this opposition is coupled with a politics of proposition that configures new non-​hierarchical and non-​vanguardist

44  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis social relations and models of organisation prefiguring the egalitarian democratic world this politics envisions. Crucially, this creative other politics tends to combine prefiguration with the endeavour to construct broad-​based organisations, enduring movements, and counter-​institutions which act strategically for system change. To the quandary of how visionary aspirations will be effectively translated into large-​scale realities in the near future, alter-​political projects reply with diverse tactics and strategic plans based on the specific diagnoses of particular circumstances. They are, therefore, informed by a political logic and ethic resistant to dogmatism, purism, and self-​indulgent insularity from society. This other logic renounces the idea of a single best way of acting and organising. It prompts people to practise open-​ended reflection and to experiment, tarrying with complexity, diversity, and contradiction (Dixon, 2014, pp. 60–​61, 232). Hence, contemporary alter-​politics enacts a “visionary pragmatism” (Coles, 2016) that straddles the reform versus revolution divide, coupling street politics and protests with everyday action and engagement with established institutions to address actual social needs, while maintaining long-​term visions and strategies of remaking society at large (Dixon, 2014, pp. 117–​121, 127–​129; Coles, 2016). Importantly, alter-​political actors tend to organise in grassroots and bottom-​up ways, which enable ordinary people to build their skills for self-​ government (Maeckelbergh, 2009; Zibechi, 2010; Kaufman, 2016, pp. 109–​ 114; De Angelis, 2017; Flesher Fominaya, 2020). The emergence and consolidation of radical cooperativism in Greece Scholars of intentional economy in Greece stress the direct connection of the former with the 2011 movement occupying public squares in several cities. Despite being characterised by internal contradictions and even opposing political imaginaries (Kaika & Karaliotas, 2016), the square occupations responding to the sweeping austerity measures of the bailout programme were transformative events that popularised egalitarian prefigurative politics and exhibited novel practices and discourses, favouring horizontality, multiplicity, and the commoning of public space (Stavridis, 2013). In their wake, a multitude of grassroots political projects emerged aiming to open up new spaces of bottom-​up democratic politics to confront austerity (Arampatzi, 2016; Pettas & Daskalaki, 2021). The commons created thereafter were eminently political. They were established as inclusive and open spaces that aimed at the (re-​)politicisation of participants against inequality and exclusion by way of attending to basic social needs while re-​embedding and relocalising production and consumption (Varvarousis et al., 2020, pp. 13–​14). Economic ventures emerging in the post-​squares phase were experimental and highly politicised but also characterised by low turnover and problems of economic viability (Varvarousis & Tsitsirigkos, 2019). The energies of activists were focused on food distribution with the aim of circumventing “middlemen” who inflated prices at the expense of both the producers and the consumers

Collaborating for change in critical times?  45 (Rakopoulos, 2015). Responding to the challenge of soaring unemployment and rapid pauperisation, many labour collectives were formed in this era, mainly by transfusing the culture of horizontality and participation prevalent among social movements into market-​oriented ventures, predominantly in commerce and services (Malamidis, 2020, ­chapter 5). There were various attempts at networking between collectives, aiming to form both synergies and common identities. Few such networks have survived to the present, as the politicised atmosphere amplified identity and ideological differences (Steinfort et al., 2017; Buchanan, 2019). Debates and conflicts revealed the tension between a vision of solidarity economy as an autonomous form of social reproduction outside and against the state and the market, and a desire for mainstreaming and institutionalisation into hybrid forms, linked to the rise of left-​wing party Syriza (Morales-​Bernardos, 2019). The eventual Syriza-​led government attempted to regulate and consolidate this space with law 4430/​2016 under the umbrella term “Social and Solidarity Economy,” which groups together diverse endeavours in the intentional economy, with different visions and aims and diverse organisational forms. The consultation process leading up to the law shone light on the fragmentation and diversity of the space, featuring opposing perspectives and expectations both within the movement and outside of it (Adam et al., 2018). Attempts to delineate and conceptualise these new forms of enterprise emanated not only from legislators and academics but also from the movements themselves, in their effort to make sense of their own activity and map out the rich landscape of grassroots initiatives. Even though the term “solidarity economy” has emerged organically as a native concept within movements (Rakopoulos, 2015, 2017a), there is no unambiguous collective identity shared by all alternative economic undertakings. Rather, an array of overlapping and politically charged terms are employed to designate practices with different scopes and objectives. Importantly, many politicised and value-​driven but market-​oriented collectives, despite adopting the cooperative legal form and honouring the historical cooperative movement, self-​identify as “collaborative” (“sinergatika”) rather than “cooperative” (“sinetairistika”) ventures. They aim to thus emphasise the joint labouring process over entrepreneurial activity and to demarcate themselves from certain parts of the traditional cooperative movement that they consider co-​opted within capitalism (Karamitrou, 2021). Three out of the four collectives in our case study fall under this category. Moreover, the term “Solidarity and Collaborative Endeavours” has been used by both movements and scholars to group together many solidarity-​driven social initiatives, both those active in the market and those operating in the sphere of the commons and social reproduction, such as social centres and solidarity clinics (Varvarousis & Kallis, 2021). Everyday rebellions or post-​political distractions? Contrary to their antecedents in the square occupations, intentional economy initiatives are not oriented towards protest and visible contestation. Rather,

46  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis they engage in alter-​politics in everyday contexts of social life, seeking to resist the rules of social coexistence from within by prefiguring alternative modes of production, consumption, distribution, and decision-​making. Claims as to the political character of intentional economies, however, come up against three distinct but interrelated bodies of criticism. First, everyday micro-​resistances have come under fire by critics of the post-​political (Swyngedouw, 2011; Wilson & Swyngedouw, 2015) for failing to transgress what Rancière, Panagia, and Bowlby (2001) terms “police order,” that is, the place allocated to people and things by the powers that be. By renouncing the politics of disagreement and public contestation, critics argue, the “micropolitics of dispersed resistances, alternative practices and affects” (Swyngedouw, 2011, p. 377) partake in the process of post-​ politicisation, whereby spaces of political antagonism are narrowing in favour of consensus-​seeking processes governed by stakeholder consultation and private rationalities. Particularly the transition from “solidarity” to “solidarity economy” is said to displace politics to the sphere of the economy, running thus the risk of reproducing the entrepreneurial assumptions of neoliberalism (Soudias, 2021). Second, since labour movements view the capitalist economy as a space of exploitation and struggle, criticisms against market-​oriented endeavours have often been articulated in this vocabulary. Varkarolis (2012, pp. 115–​120) and Gkagkelis (2021) collect such widespread criticisms. Cooperatives run the risk of becoming capitalist businesses incentivised by the profit principle, albeit collectively run. They serve to commodify aspects of social life previously lying outside the scope of the market. They promote individualism and demobilisation. And, importantly, being “their own bosses,” cooperativists engage in self-​ exploitation, intensifying and devaluing their own labour to meet the demands of the market. Third, criticism has also been leveraged from within the cooperative movement. Owing to their dual nature as both economic enterprises and political associations, cooperatives are prone to democratic degeneration along various dimensions (Diamantopoulos, 2012), whereby democratic operation, egalitarianism, and wider political goals and alliances are sacrificed for the sake of efficiency and economic viability. Cooperatives are also often taken to task for operating as complements to the state and the market, addressing their failure to guarantee social reproduction. Their autonomy as political actors and transformative agents is thus seriously curtailed (Marques, 2014, p. 10). The above criticisms are relevant for assessing the political thrust of intentional economies, since the ventures in our study operate largely within the commodity-​ producing, formal, market sector. Subject to both regulatory pressures and market dynamics, cooperatives are situated in a paradoxical position, where the collaboration and reciprocity prevalent among social movements come up against the competition and utility maximisation that markets call for. Their capacity for producing social outcomes and political

Collaborating for change in critical times?  47 change is constantly measured against their success in their market segment and their economic viability. Do alternative economic endeavours live up to the task of “destabilizing the economy as it is usually known and performed” (Gibson-​Graham, 2006, p. 79)? Or do they submit politics to the laws of the economy, as critics would have it? Specifically, how do they promote equality and inclusion in economic decision-​making? Can the rigidities of economic viability divert them from their original aims and values? How do they subvert the prevalent dualisms of employer-​employee or producer-​consumer and the forced separation between the economic, the social, and the political spheres? How do they combat alienation and enact different everyday relationships? Importantly, what is their conception of politics and how do they go about pursuing social transformation? These are some of the questions we will be tackling in the following sections, after a brief presentation of our subjects of study. Our case studies Our fieldwork was carried out in Thessaloniki, a city of about one million people in the north of Greece that has been a hotspot for alternative economies. Our focus in this paper is on value-​driven but mature cooperatives. In their case, the initial egalitarian and transformative ethos guiding the formation of new solidarity economy ventures has been tested against the imperatives of market competition and economic viability. Our case studies were chosen to encompass projects in different economic sectors, coming from different origins and trajectories, and informed by different political outlooks. Our fieldwork, including several semi-​structured interviews and focus groups, was conducted in the early winter of 2021. Bios Co-​op is a large consumer cooperative running a food store southeast of downtown Thessaloniki. It originates in a grassroots effort and was incorporated in 2012. The shop opened two years later. Sharing the aspiration to “take food into our own hands” with the wider movement of food autonomy during the years of crisis (Rakopoulos, 2017a; Morales-​Bernardos, 2019), Bios distributes around 3,500 fresh and processed products originating mainly in agricultural cooperatives or small farmers, largely bypassing intermediaries. It maintains very high, collectively agreed-​upon, standards of quality assurance for the products it distributes, having even established its own process of testing foodstuffs for chemical residues –​a remarkable feat for a relatively small outfit, compared to mainstream supermarket chains. Out of the projects we have studied, Bios adheres most closely to the cooperative principles put forward by the international cooperative movement. It stands out not only for its scale and complexity but also for its diversity in terms of the class, gender, age, and political outlook of its members. Indeed, the co-​op can be described as a melting pot, where disparate participants attempt to forge a common internal culture of cooperation.

48  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis The counterpoint to Bios’ success is the intensity of labour required of its members. While overall membership is over 400 people, volunteer work by about 40 members in committees, boards, and workgroups on all aspects of the cooperative’s operation, from quality assurance to accounting and from provisions to maintenance, has been pivotal in achieving so much in such a short time, setting out from a very modest initial capital and limited know-​how (Nikolaou, 2021). At the same time, day-​to-​day operations are carried out by ten remunerated worker members. Labour has also been a point of friction for Bios, in a past internal conflict that according to Buchanan (2019) brought to the surface deeper divisions along class and political ideology. Even though its scars have long been healed, the conflict served to highlight the centrality of recognising, empowering, and remunerating labour within solidarity economy, especially in a context such as Greece, where the devaluation of labour and working peoples’ lives has been brutal under the impact of austerity politics (see also Rakopoulos, 2017b, 2019). Akyvernites Politeies (henceforth AP), translated as “Ungovernable States,” is a cooperative bookstore, coffee shop, and publishing house in Thessaloniki, run by a tight-​knit group of politically minded people who were previously employed in the publishing and book retail sectors. Their stated aim is to produce and disseminate critical and radical books, to struggle against the commodification of knowledge and to establish a space of encounter for the “antagonistic movement” and a politically interested public (Manoukas, 2021). They have been operating since 2013 under the legal shell of a “Social Cooperative Enterprise” (“KOINSEP”) which is made up today of five active members. Inspired by the example of the occupied factory Vio.Me. in Thessaloniki, whose statute served as a prototype for drafting their own, they established their co-​op as a bossless, egalitarian organisation grounded in collective decision-​ making. Despite having renounced waged relations, they explicitly support and participate in workers’ struggles and strikes, while they are committed to the development of cooperative economy –​or collaborative (“synergatiki”) economy in their own terms, as labour is here the focal point –​using any surpluses to foster new ventures with a cognate political, social, and militant outlook. At the same time, AP are aware of the current economic and political limits of their venture. Facing stiff competition from larger private bookstores and publishers, they have frequently been forced to self-​exploitation, working above and beyond the average to make their enterprise financially sustainable (Karamitrou, 2021). Vio.Me., operating out of a former building materials factory at the outskirts of Thessaloniki, is the first experiment to date where an industrial conflict has led to the occupation of the means of production by the workers. In May 2011, at the height of the financial crisis, the factory was abandoned by its owners and the workers were left unpaid. In response, they occupied the factory and started legally withholding their labour (Katsoridas, 2013). After several months of unfruitful negotiations, the general assembly of the workers decided to operate the occupied factory under direct democratic workers’

Collaborating for change in critical times?  49 control. Having shifted production to natural detergents, driven by a concern with eco-​social sustainability, they restarted production on 12 February2013, under the now emblematic motto “If you cannot do it, we can!” The Vio.Me. project lies at the intersection of traditional labour struggles and the budding movement of solidarity economy. At the heart of this effort lies Vio.Me. workers’ assembly, driven by sharp class consciousness and operating in a non-​ hierarchical manner. This arrangement seeks to eliminate inequalities within the workplace, unleash workers’ creativity, and secure workers’ control over the production process. In line with the cooperative principles, the workers put a cap on their individual proceeds, directing surpluses towards the purposes of the wider community and similar struggles and endeavours (Vio.Me. members 2021), consciously discarding thus the profit principle. The workers insist that the occupied factory is not privatised but made common. Throughout the years, the factory has welcomed social movement assemblies, fairs, and festivals. It has organised farmers’ markets; it has operated as a distribution hub of necessities for the migrant solidarity movement; and it has provided space for the productive activities of other cooperatives. Point Blank is a web development firm set up in 2008 –​several years before the explosion of the new cooperativism in Greece –​by politically active people as “a way to earn a living with dignity” rather than as an explicitly political project (Point Blank members, 2021). It currently has eight full and four prospective members, and it is one of the most successful and recognised companies in its market segment. The company has been striving to maintain equality and horizontal decision-​making in its interior while responding to the challenges of a rapidly evolving, highly competitive, and very specialised market. Pragmatism and a hands-​on approach to preserving its principles are guiding its operation. The company’s economic success is seen as a mixed blessing by its members. On the one hand, it allows them what they describe as the “luxury” of operating through time-​consuming assembly-​based decision-​making, and to introduce ethico-​political criteria in deciding the jobs they will take on, without compromising viability. On the other hand, the stakes are high, and the burden of entrepreneurial risk becomes occasionally too heavy (Point Blank members, 2021). Point Blank has had observer status in various networking attempts between “collaborative” projects in the city. However, acknowledging the absence of a unified posture on the political potential of cooperativism, they maintain a horizontal internal functioning without an external militant outlook, although, as they stress, their values and principles are not kept secret from their clients and business partners (Point Blank members, 2021). Lines of transformation A great part of the effort of cooperatives is doubtlessly oriented towards the production of commodities in the form of marketable goods and services. Our

50  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis focus here, however, is on the ways in which the collectives in our case studies produce alternative relations, mentalities, and modes of organisation. Based on our fieldwork data, we explore different alter-​political dimensions in the cooperative ventures’ operation: Their implementation of horizontality as an organising principle, their daily effort to resignify their activity and transform established relationships, and, finally, their views on broader social change and the role of radical cooperativism in it. Equality and horizontal decision-​making

Assembly-​based democracy, a drive to enact horizontalist, non-​hierarchical relations, collective reflexivity, and attention to process are hallmarks of the democratic alter-​politics of our times and pronounced features of the foregoing ventures in the collaborative economy. The contestation of relations of domination both inside and outside these collective initiatives is coupled with the configuration of radical democratic relations in their midst and the anticipation –​or prefiguration –​of such relations in a future society of equal freedom. In accord with their egalitarian spirit and practice, assembly-​based decision-​ making on fundamental matters of concern is the default mode in all our case studies. In AP, the General Assembly is held once a month to deliberate on financial matters and future plans. Decisions are taken on a footing of equality, even though formally the KOINSEP has a president. They use simple majority for routine issues and enhanced majority for fundamental questions, such as their statute and general policies (Karamitrou, 2021). By employing digital technologies such as messaging apps, the process of collective decision-​making is effectively sustained and ongoing, coupling face-​to-​face interaction with techno-​politics in a manner characteristic of many other instances of contemporary alter-​politics. A general assembly wielding the ultimate decision-​making authority is also central to the militant cooperativism of the occupied factory of Vio.Me. In the assembly meeting, which is organically integrated into the everyday operation of the enterprise, all members participate on a footing of equality. The assembly is held every morning before any other tasks, and it lasts two to three hours. All matters, both routine and more general, are deliberated, starting with the communication received by the co-​op and moving on to management and operational issues, whereby colleagues may consult each other and plan out their collaboration in specific tasks. Although disagreements are not uncommon, they aim for consensus which is attained in most cases. When it is not, they resort to voting, which requires enhanced majorities for significant decisions (Vio.Me. members, 2021). Due to the high specialisation of their work, the members of Point Blank tend to collaborate in specific working groups. But the main resolutions are made by the General Assembly, which seeks to reach consensus and only rarely decides by voting. The General or “Statutory” Assembly is for full members only. But all co-​workers take part in the weekly administrative assembly in

Collaborating for change in critical times?  51 which they address daily issues, report on their individual and collective work, assign tasks for major projects, and seek assistance. The core matters decided at the statutory assembly bear on their statute, their strategies, their internal organisational structure, and, crucially, on major projects which may impact their autonomy or personal life (Point Blank members, 2021). Owing to its breadth and pluralism, Bios Co-​op has had to adopt more elaborate co-​decision processes. The ultimate power lies with an infrequently convened General Assembly. An elected Administrative Board is formally entrusted with day-​to-​day decisions, but any member can attend and vote in the weekly board meetings, in what they term “Open Board.” Decisions should be ratified by at least 70 percent of the elected board members and 70 percent of all members present –​although in practice unanimity is always sought. Worker members are encouraged to participate in the open administrative board, and meetings are held outside store opening hours to enable them to attend. The Open Board resolutions are then reviewed by the Supervisory Board to ensure that they comply with both the law and the resolutions of the General Assembly (Nikolaou, 2021). The Open Board arrangement, which was not included in the initial statute, is a hallmark of the democratic evolution of the co-​op, designed to empower worker members vis-​a-​vis board members and to prevent domination of any one group. Indeed, the democratic degeneration argument is disproven in our study: To the contrary, we found all co-​ops to be willing to sacrifice part of their efficiency and profitability if they are to improve democratic participation and equality in their day-​to-​day operations. Confronting alienation and transforming relationships

A drive to transform established relationships in the direction of solidarity, egalitarianism, and participation is central for all the collaborative ventures in our study, despite the acute awareness of the contextual constraints and contradictions involved in such efforts. In the first place, working without a boss is an aspect all participants highlight as transformative and liberating. With this freedom, however, comes increased responsibility, as members of the cooperatives share in the risks and burdens of entrepreneurship. The dangers of what critics –​as well as our interview subjects –​term self-​exploitation are ever-​ present. To ensure viability in what are normally labour-​intensive productive sectors, cooperators may increase their own working hours and decrease their own remuneration. Working long hours is something many of our interviewees have admitted doing, even if generally they consider it less burdensome when they do so for their “common project” rather than an employer. Moreover, doing away with waged labour relationships has knock-​on effects on other aspects of the cooperatives’ activity. Having no recourse to employing external, non-​member labourers may affect the capacity of an enterprise to respond to instances of increased demand or to take on short-​term projects, thus hurting its competitiveness and its bottom line. Collectives that are closer to the workers’ movement traditions, such as Vio.Me. and AP, unequivocally

52  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis refuse to hire temporary help for fear of becoming collective employers. Instead, they tackle increased workload problems by “working harder” (Vio. Me. members, 2021). Point Blank has a more pragmatic approach and employs contractors to meet irregular demand, but it uses safeguards to avoid becoming a “normal company.” Contracts should have a limited duration and should not cover fixed and permanent needs of the company (Point Blank members, 2021). The situation is far more complex for Bios Co-​op, where there is high employee turnover. Its members, however, refuse to frame remunerated work in terms of waged labour. Although the ten worker members are distinguished from the hundreds of consumer members and the dozens of volunteer members active in the committees and governing bodies, interviewees insist that the cooperative is not a collective employer (Nikolaou, 2021; Giannis Bios Co-​op, 2021). Worker members have a voice and vote in all assemblies; they can stand for election to the administrative bodies; and they retain thus a certain degree of decision-​making power over their own activity. All co-​ops in our study are aware of the danger of becoming collective capitalists and actively shape their internal operations so as to prevent this eventuality. Cooperatives operate within markets and depend on them for their survival. But they actively attempt to bring social considerations into production and distribution, involving the wider citizenry into their processes. A bold step in this direction has been taken by Vio.Me., who deliberately incorporate what they term “social control” into production (Vio.Me. members, 2021). Through the weekly open solidarity assembly and the annual general assembly of all supporters, they have managed to implicate a part of society in decisions concerning not only quality and environmental aspects of production but also political matters. Vio. Me. repeatedly stresses that “factories should produce for social needs, not for the market” (ibid.). Likewise, Point Blank refuses to blindly follow the market and has established well-​defined “red lines” in regard to the projects it takes on. They refuse to work for the police and the military, as well as for the armament, mining, banking, and gambling sectors, which they perceive as socially pernicious. This refusal may be costly, but for them “cooperatives can even play a reactionary role if they don’t have well-​defined red lines” (Point Blank members, 2021). Rather than relegate politics in favour of the laws of the economy, we found the co-​ops in our study to pursue the opposite: Actively introduce socio-​ political considerations in decisions affecting production and distribution. The degree to which participation in intentional economy initiatives brings about individual transformation and a shift in members’ political outlook hinges on each cooperative’s wider orientation. For overtly political collectives, such as Vio.Me., recuperating their workplace has meant “transforming not only our jobs but also our life” (Vio.Me. members, 2021). Through participation and debate within the wider movement, they have come to form opinions and proposals on wider social issues that were outside the scope of their activity, such as healthcare provision, education, and food distribution. Finally, they have changed their individual consumption patterns, factoring in environmental and labour concerns into their choices.

Collaborating for change in critical times?  53 Along with the hard labouring efforts they devote to their businesses and the battles they have had to wage, the group of alter-​cooperativists we conversed with also experience affects of conviviality and joy in their work. Vio.Me. workers share tsipouro (Greek alcoholic drink) and meze (savoury snacks) on the premises of the factory after finishing their shift. Members of Bios sound elated when mentioning the high quality of food they distribute and consume, supporting ethical local producers (Triantafyllou, 2021). In AP, they relish their companionship. They also take pride in the social recognition of their solidary ethos and the critical political attitude of their bookstore: “we have a face in society” (Karamitrou, 2021). Transforming the sterilised spaces of production into fields of individual and collective fulfilment is a central achievement of alter-​economic endeavours. From collective empowerment to social change

Attesting to their non-​dogmatic pragmatism, staunch anti-​capitalism is not a political identity shared by all members of the cooperatives. However, the primacy they accord to social needs, collaboration and egalitarianism over profit, property, and hierarchies constitutes a common practical identity of all. Most cooperative ventures in our focus group have knitted local networks with other cooperative enterprises with a view to expanding collaborative economies. They embed thus their labours in the construction of alternative institutions and in long-​term processes of building a sizeable sector of transformative cooperativism. Even when they recognise their ambiguous position in regard to the workers’ movement, members of cooperative endeavours often take part in workers’ struggles or other social mobilisations. They also effectively display their solidarity with subaltern social groups such as migrants and refugees. Recognising the force of middle-​class consciousness and its attachment to neoliberal capitalism, they engage, moreover, in educational and consciousness-​raising activities which unsettle the neoliberal habitus and shift common sense towards radical directions. They highlight thus the need for politicising cooperativism to turn it into a potential vehicle for historical transitions. In their political vision, however, cooperativism would be only a part, not the mainstay of anti-​ capitalist contestation and transformation. As most of our interviewees made plain, militant cooperatives ought to complement the wider movement of struggle and change. In the economic field, workers’ struggles and the occupation of the means of production are equally vital for radical transformation. In the political field, many interviewees have expressed scepticism regarding the capacity of the state –​at least in its current form –​to act as the embodiment of collective will, and become thus a lever of social change. In its stead, they propose the community or society as the optimal collective actor embodying principles of egalitarianism and direct participation. Doubts are often expressed about the capacity of cooperativism to act as a motor for post-​capitalist change rather than as a safety valve for neoliberal

54  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis capitalism, operating as a harmless symbiotic domain under hegemonic relations of production. Point Blank, for instance, stresses that insofar as money flows are controlled by banks and the market can act as a “boss,” productive autonomy is limited for cooperative ventures (Point Blank members, 2021). AP warn against the utilisation of cooperative legal forms to bypass labour rights. For alter-​economic endeavours to have a transformative edge, most of our interviewees concur, what is needed is a conscious orientation towards a collaborative economy, a commitment to egalitarian principles beyond capitalism, and, ultimately, the will for integration with like-​minded enterprises into self-​sustaining solidarity ecosystems. Even when they recognise the difficulty of transforming the cooperative movement into a lever of social change, the co-​ops in our study do not appear to operate in a post-​political framework where private rationalities prevail. Working persistently to establish different day-​to-​day relationships without renouncing the aim of a wider social transformation, setting an example without aspiring to become the vanguard, participating in a broader movement for social change while acknowledging its hurdles and challenges appear to be the distinguishing marks of the cautious but visionary pragmatism that animates the activity of the cooperatives we engaged with. In the words of one of our interviewees: There can be no revolutionary movement that doesn’t have a foot in the economy. And in the economic field, we cannot be limited to claiming a wage from employers. Of course, wages and demands and resistances are very important, but there is also the practice of building our own structures, either starting from scratch or, even better, by taking over –​as Vio.Me. has done –​a part of production and distribution to transform it and develop it into something resembling the prospective future society. Of course, in regard to social change, the social movement has regressed so much in the last few years that all this sounds like science fiction. But there is no other way forward. (Manoukas, 2021) Reflecting on alter-​politics and cooperativism for change: Some lessons from recent experience Moments of mass mobilisation and grassroots effervescence inevitably invite reflection on the nature of the political. The present conjuncture of neoliberalisation, whereby spaces of political deliberation and antagonism are closing down in favour of technocratic, managerial, and economicist rationalities, makes such a reflection especially timely and urgent. The conception of democratic alter-​ politics that informs our critical account is not confined to the formal political system. Instead, it assumes an ampler conception of the political as deliberate action on social relations and structures, which can question, alter, or uphold them. The political

Collaborating for change in critical times?  55 thus construed takes place between the extremes of all-​out war and full harmony, both of which eliminate political interaction in the sense of collective decision-​making, negotiation, or struggle between alternatives. This understanding attends to the marked openness and plurality of the political, the unpredictable forms that it can take on, its amenability to change, and its diverse appearances in multiple sites and guises, from the formal political system to the informal micro-​politics of daily intercourse and the making of subjectivities (Kioupkiolis, 2020). In this context, far from being accessory to post-​political retrogression, radical cooperativism introduces political innovation and cultivates transformative potential in ordinary exchanges and processes occurring at multiple time –​and space-​ scales. By enlarging social movement boundaries (Malamidis, 2021) and transfusing their values into the field of market operation, supposedly governed by immutable and objective laws, cooperatives put into question the putative impermeability of the economy to political considerations, upon which the neoliberal hegemony is premised. An antagonistic frontline (De Angelis, 2007) is thus established between different value systems, one based on equity and solidarity and another on concerns of efficiency and profitability. Despite the power asymmetry, capitalism is not a monolithic system. It operates imperfectly, co-​dependent and co-​evolving with non-​capitalist arrangements. Solidarity-​based systems may develop on top of a capitalist material basis. Likewise, capitalism is conditional upon non-​ capitalist arrangements for its survival, as the ultimate prevalence of capitalist values would thwart social reproduction and would signal thus capitalism’s own demise. This undecidability constantly opens up spaces for political intervention and alternative value practices. As all our interviewees affirmed, radical cooperativism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social change. Cooperatives need to maintain their links with wider social movements operating in other ambits of social life, while balancing their distinctive values with their viability within the market. However, emerging in critical times, radical cooperatives are often invested with political expectations higher than what their scale and scope would warrant. This pressure to validate the cooperative’s capacity as a vehicle of social change is a burden that cooperativists may deem too heavy. To be sure, the transformative capacity of each economic endeavour is limited. For these frontline struggles to have a transformative effect, a critical mass of solidarity-​based practices needs to develop and interlink into contestational ecosystems (De Angelis, 2017, p. 372). Thus, opposition to neoliberal capitalism is not dependent on dispersed resistances, but neither is it entrusted to political organisations or deferred to a future moment of revolutionary rupture. Anti-​capitalism is enacted, rather, in everyday operations: in collective decision-​making, in solidarity extended to other struggles or groups in need, in embracing the principle of collaboration and demoting profit as the driving force of economic activity. This is how most cooperative ventures in this study straddle the reform/​revolution divide. A broad transcendence of capitalist rule remains an objective grounded in the

56  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis reconstruction of socio-​economic relations here and now, in a bid to move beyond the hierarchical and profit-​driven logic of capitalist markets. All four instances of transformative cooperativism we engaged with incarnate in varying degrees, but in illuminating ways, the widespread alter-​political spirit of recent aspirational activism. Their hallmark horizontalism is coupled with an anti-​ capitalist visionary pragmatism. While they remain cognizant of their contextual constraints, their everyday activity catering to actual social needs is embedded within a socio-​political vision of an egalitarian world beyond capitalism which constitutes a horizon of broader present-​day contention and aspiration. Acknowledgement This chapter includes research conducted by Theodoros Karyotis in the context of the Property and Democratic Citizenship project, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 771795). References Adam, S., Kornilakis, A., & Kavoulakos, K. (2018). Το θεσμικό πλαίσιο της κοινωνικής αλληλέγγυας οικονομίας στην Ελλάδα: η εμπειρία της δημόσιας διαβούλευσης και μια κριτική αποτίμηση του νόμου 4430/​2016 [The legal framework of social solidarity economy in Greece: The experience of public consultation and a critical evaluation of law 4430/​2016]. Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Thessaloniki. Arampatzi, A. (2016). The spatiality of counter-​ austerity politics in Athens, Greece: Emergent “urban solidarity spaces”. Urban Studies 54(9): 2155–​2171. DOI: 10.1177/​0042098016629311 Buchanan, C. (2019). Dealing with undeniable differences in Thessaloniki’s solidarity economy of food. Sustainability 11(8): 2426. DOI: 10.3390/​su11082426 Coles, R. (2016). Visionary pragmatism. Duke University Press. De Angelis, M. (2007). The beginning of history: Value struggles and global capital. Pluto Press. De Angelis, M. (2017). Omnia Sunt Communia: On the commons and the transformation to postcapitalism. Zed Books. Diamantopoulos, M. (2012). Breaking out of co-​ operation’s “Iron Cage”: From movement degeneration to building a developmental movement. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 83(2): 199–​214. DOI: 10.1111/​j.1467-​8292.2012.00461.x Dixon, C. (2014). Another politics: Talking across today’s transformative movements. University of California Press. Flesher Fominaya, C. (2020). Democracy reloaded: Inside Spain’s political laboratory from 15-​M to Podemos. Oxford University Press. Giannis Bios Co-​op. (2021). Interview with Giannis, a worker-​member of Bios Co-​op. Thessaloniki, 16 December 2021, T. Karyotis & A. Kioupkiolis. Gibson-​Graham, J.K. (2006). A postcapitalist politics. University of Minnesota Press. Gkagkelis, V. (2021). A critical analysis of anarchist critiques of the Field of “Solidarity and Cooperative Economy” in Greece. Social Change Review 19. DOI: 10.2478/​ scr-​2021-​0003

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58  Theodoros Karyotis and Alexandros Kioupkiolis Rakopoulos, T. (2017b). The future of solidarity: Food cooperativism as labour. In Dalakoglou, D. & Agelopoulos, G. (Eds.), Critical times in Greece: Anthropological engagements with the crisis. Routledge, pp. 202–​216. Rakopoulos, T. (2019). Seventy percent Zapatista? Solidarity “ecosystems” and the troubles of valuing labor in food cooperatives. In Harper, K. & Siniscalchi, V. (Eds.), Food values in Europe. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 147–​162. Rancière, J. Panagia, D., & Bowlby, R. (2001). Ten theses on politics. Theory & Event 5(3). DOI:10.1353/​tae.2001.0028 Soudias, D. (2021). Neoliberalisation and the social and solidarity economy in Greece. [email protected] December 2021. Available from: https://​blogs.lse.ac.uk/​gree​ceat​ lse/​2021/​12/​15/​neolib​eral​isat​ion-​and-​the-​soc​ial-​and-​sol​idar​ity-​econ​omy-​in-​gre​ece/​ [Accessed 12 January 2022]. Stavridis, S. (2013). Re-​inventing spaces of commoning: Occupied squares in movement. Quaderns-​e de l’Institut Català d’Antropologia 18(2): 22–​39. Steinfort, L., Hendrikx, B., & Pijpers, R. (2017). Communal performativity –​A seed for change? The solidarity of Thessaloniki’s social movements in the diverse fights against neoliberalism. Antipode 49(5): 1446–​1463. DOI: 10.1111/​anti.12351 Swyngedouw, E. (2011). Interrogating post-​democratization: Reclaiming egalitarian political spaces. Political Geography 30(7): 370–​380. DOI: 10.1016/​j.polgeo.2011.08.001 Triantafyllou, P. (2021). Interview with Popi Triantafyllou, a consumer-​member of Bios Co-​op. Thessaloniki, 09 December 2021, T. Karyotis & A. Kioupkiolis. Varkarolis, O. (2012). Δημιουργικές αντιστάσεις και αντεξουσία. Εγχειρήματα και προβληματισμοί του ριζοσπαστικού κινήματος στον 21ο αιώνα [Creative resistances and counter-​power. Endeavours and Debates of the radical movement in the 21st century]. To Pagkaki. Varvarousis, A., Asara, V., & Akbulut, B. (2020). Commons: A social outcome of the movement of the squares. Social Movement Studies 20(3): 292–​311. Varvarousis, A., & Kallis, G. (2021). Διαδρομές εξόδου από την κρίση: Τα αλληλέγγυα και συνεργατικά εγχειρήματα στην Ελλάδα την περίοδο 2016–​2017 [Escape routes from the crisis: Solidarity and collaborative endeavours in Greece, 2016–​2017]. Thessaloniki: Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Varvarousis, A., & Tsitsirigkos, G. (2019). Social enterprises and their ecosystems in Europe. Updated country report: Greece. European Commission. Vio.Me. members. (2021). Group interview with three members of the Vio.Me. workers’ assembly. Thessaloniki, 11 December 2021, T. Karyotis & A. Kioupkiolis. Wilson, J., & Swyngedouw, E. (2015). Seeds of dystopia: Post-​ politics and the return of the political’. In Wilson, J. & Swyngedouw, E. (Eds.), Post-​political and its discontents: Spaces of depoliticisation, spectres of radical politics. Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1–​24. Zibechi, R. (2010). Dispersing power: Social movements as anti-​state forces. AK Press.

5 Everyday micro-​resistances and horizons of radical solidarity, care, and mutualism George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi

Introduction Despair is often the hallmark of our contemporary resignation to the sheer injustice and inequalities of neoliberal governmentalities. From ecological degradation to the erosion of our social infrastructures, we are ordinarily confronted with a sense of powerlessness and irreparability that produces desperation and obfuscates our potential to repair and transform our lives and our ecologies. This chapter is an escape from despair, a resistant leap towards a horizon of reparation. We present the stories of a social and solidarity clinic in Greece (KIA) and a recuperated factory in Italy (Ri.Maflow), both of which have evolved into spaces of experimentation within a wider network of struggles. The choice of these two spaces for the purpose of discussing and problematising the idea of mundane micro-​practices of resistance is deliberate. We believe that these cases bring forth the fragility of resistance formation; fragility “not in the sense that it is already formed and might be easily broken but in the sense that it is taking shape and needs care and caution as it comes into being” (Gibson-​Graham, Cameron, & Healy, 2013, p. 1062). We look at mundane and experimental practices in these two cases with the intention to reaffirm its complexity as being not only an (un)intentional and (un)anticipated act of refusal but also a transformational process of becoming within and across spaces/​places. Resistance evolves as a constant reconfiguration of socio-​spatial formations, a productive process that “shapes ideas of politics and the potential for social transformation” (Bloom, 2016, p.6). The concept of resistance has traditionally reproduced a binary model that poses at its opposite pole the monolithic pervasiveness of power and domination (Ortner, 1995): Power comes first and resistance can exert an action of disturbance and dissent, aimed at replacing its opponent. This view has often been attached to a fascination for rare and spectacular events of struggle. Resistance involves masses, barricades, occupations, clashes, a certain degree of violence, and febrile enthusiasm. These coordinates define a circumscribed moment in history that momentarily disrupts the ordinary stability of power. The idea of resistance as an event (Badiou, 2007; Douzinas, 2013; Rancière, 2010) has been widely criticised in recent years as it does not account for the complexity of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-5

60  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi emergence of resistance as an incremental and grounded process (Uitermark & Nicholls, 2014), its vast repertoire of practices, and its creative and transformative potential (Checchi, 2021). We follow Lilja (2022) to argue that today “resistance is to be treated as an umbrella concept that contains forms of everyday, serial and organized resistance as well as the connection between these.” In particular, the idea of everyday resistance helps to provide a microphysical gaze that focuses not only on the oppositional and adversarial component of resistance, but on its mundane, minute, and experimental practices that display its creative character. While the concept of everyday resistance was originally conceived to make sense of those hidden micro-​practices that avoid repression through disguise (Scott, 1985), we look at everyday forms of resistance that operate openly and, on the contrary, reclaim their visibility despite the risks that this might entail. To some extent, the analysis of these everyday practices of resistance contributes to the wider debate on prefiguration (Yates, 2015). Yet, it is important to emphasise how our case studies display practices that not only prefigure an alternative future, but, more urgently, address present needs and the impellent necessity to create alternative forms of living in the here and now, despite adverse conditions and vulnerable infrastructures. In this chapter, we show how everyday micro-​resistances, through multiple reiterations and experimentations with alternative forms of organising, create a horizon of radical solidarity, mutualism, and care. Our work draws on data collected between July 2016 and December 2021 through a range of qualitative methodologies (semi-​structured interviews, participant observation, photo-​elicitation, event organisations, and informal group conversations) from KIA, a solidarity social clinic in Greece, and Ri.Maflow, a recuperated factory in Italy. Our data analysis process had several stages starting with an initial free coding of the transcripts from the recorded interviews and our reflective diary to identifying key themes. We then use photography to revisit our experience and reflections in the diaries, to initiate discussions among ourselves about our interpretation of our data and to question how these images affected us. The outcome of this process was to identify the agency of more mundane materialities (e.g., in the case of KIA we looked at the clothes, posters, medical equipment) in a variety of uncertain and experimental practices. We found this process useful for exploring the microphysics of resistance at work in the continuous experimentation of exerting power differently within those organisations and their transformative potential that expands beyond their boundaries. This chapter is divided in two main sections and tells the story of Ri.Maflow and KIA looking at how the blurring of boundaries contributes to the emergence of new possibilities and new imaginative relationships at the setting of a recuperated factory and a healthcare facility. First, we look at the case of Ri.Maflow, and reflect on how a recuperated factory is more than a reaction to unemployment, (re-​)inventing work, autonomy, and self-​management within the walls of the warehouse and in its relation with the wider ecology of its community. We then turn our attention to the case of KIA, aiming to reflect on how a social clinic evolves from a healthcare initiative to a health community

Everyday micro-resistances and horizons of radical solidarity  61 and a space of wider social experimentation that is questioning the traditional hierarchical structure of the medical apparatus. We believe that these stories are important for making better sense of the microphysics of resistance, encouraging us to reflect on everyday micro-​resistances not simply as a reaction against the loss of social and economic infrastructures due to austerity, but active practices of solidarity that experimentally engage with creation with often unintentional and unanticipated outcomes. Resistance as creation: The story of KIA The Social Clinic of Solidarity (KIA)1 is located near the city centre of Thessaloniki and it was established by a group of medical professionals and activists in 2012 as a reaction to the austerity policies implemented in the Greek national healthcare system that left over 3 million people without access to healthcare (Evlampidou & Kogevinas, 2019). During that period, Greece witnessed a wave of experimentation with alternative forms of organisation, based on the principles of user-​ ownership, user-​ control, and user-​ benefit (Kokkinidis, 2015; Daskalaki & Kokkinidis, 2017; Howarth & Roussos, 2022). Social and solidarity clinics were established across Greece most of which were self-​organised and although most had slowly died out, KIA is not only remaining operational but thriving (Kokkinidis & Checchi, 2023). The clinic has several divisions, some of which operate daily (pharmacy, dentistry, and pathology) while other periodically (e.g., psychology and physiotherapy). At its busiest period, the clinic counted more than 350 members (medical and non-​medical personnel) and provided free medical care to over 10,000 people every year. While several members have left the clinic in the past 2 years, partly as a result of disagreements about the character, purpose, and future potentialities of the clinic, the basic structure has remained intact and so does the members inspiration for creating a “health community.” In fact, it is perhaps fair to suggest that the member’s aspiration to create a health community has been strengthened, with new collaborations and possibilities emerging both at local and at European level, with KIA at the forefront of these initiatives. The clinic has a flat structure across its divisions and is guided by the principles of self-​ management, cooperation, and egalitarianism with the aim to cultivate relationships that promote collective working and members’ autonomy. Autonomy here is to be understood in its collective dimension, as a collective project and as a social relation that shapes our ways of both living and connecting with others that requires a distinct form of being, both at an individual level and at a collective level (Weeks, 2011; Ghelfi & Papadopoulos, 2022). Operationally, the clinic is supported (both financially and with medical supplies) by solidarity groups in Greece and across Europe, and none of the members is financially remunerated for their work. As for the clinic’s governance, it is solely the responsibility of its members through weekly divisional meetings and a monthly general assembly meeting. There is an inclusive model of participation in place where all members of the clinic are invited to

62  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi actively participate and decisions are made consensually, whenever possible. Disagreements are common as in any open initiative, and although we have witnessed extreme situations where members have chosen to leave the clinic, it will be fair to argue that such instances are rather rare and that disagreement is not suppressed or discouraged but creatively embraced, encouraging thus members to discuss what produces the objection and negotiate potential solutions until they are able to find a way to meet that need in a revised agreement, rather than to suppress the objection. Yet, at times of unresolved conflicts and disagreements, the group is using majority rule. The general assembly is responsible for laying down the basic principles and loose boundaries for the operations of the clinic, yet there is much flexibility and members are encouraged to be proactive on daily matters as well as organise action groups for local-​or national-​level initiatives and social struggles. In short, looking at the organising practices at KIA, emphasis is placed on the collective dimension of autonomy and the realisation of their self-​creating, self-​altering, and self-​instituting capacities, which in turn is fashioning “rule-​creating” rather than “rule-​following” subjectivities. KIA is far from a typical clinic. Once through the entrance, you immediately notice something is missing: From the doctors’ white coats and the blue outfits of nurses to the distinctive smell of a clinic, a blending of medical odours and sickness, that situates the body within the particular setting of a medical space and shapes doctors’ and patients’ behaviour accordingly. Their absence causes a sense of disorientation that calls for a new cartography of the clinic and the active reconfiguration of the embodied experiences of doctors and patients alike, blurring organisational boundaries and opening possibilities for different material entanglements and alternative ways of exerting power. Reflecting on how these resistances are not simply a reaction against the loss of social and economic infrastructures due to austerity (in this case access to healthcare), but active practices of solidarity, stories such as that of KIA invite us to look beyond grand events or heroic individuals, and more into an ever-​expanding community of struggle and creation that extends across time and space. It is a story of everyday forms of resistance that are often messy, experimental, and creative processes with unintentional and unanticipated outcomes. What started out as a response to austerity policies which left over 3 million people without access to healthcare, is gradually evolving into a “health community,” contrasting the hierarchical and disciplinary nature of mainstream medicine to the egalitarian character of the health community. Where and how did this transformation start? Does it have an ending? Let us take a closer look at some of their everyday and experimental practices and initiatives. As we have already argued, KIA is far from a typical clinic. The layout of the clinic, the unconventional dress code, and the distinctive odour, all create a sense of disorientation; while the traditional hierarchical relations of medical profession are challenged through a range of discursive (“proserhomenos”) and experimental (cooperative dentistry, integrative medicine, and common

Everyday micro-resistances and horizons of radical solidarity  63 diabetes sessions) practices that we will turn our attention to, in the rest of this section. Starting with the idea of the Proserhomenos, this is a Greek word meaning that someone is “coming into,” “engages in/​with,” and “presents oneself.” At the setting of the clinic there is no doctors, no patients, not even researchers. Entering KIA turned us into “proserhomenos,” a term used to describe anyone intra-​acting within the clinic (irrespective of their role), an attempt to create a shared identity that instigates relationships of mutuality towards the collective co-​creation of a health community, bringing forth the plasticity of a co-​created space, where boundaries between the expertise of the medical professional and the passivity of the patient are altered. Such distinctive discursive practices created the conditions to rearticulate the boundaries of a clinic by excluding exclusionary practices entailed by traditional discursive practices/​ (con) figurations, from the commonly used notion of patient that connotes someone socially “weak” and marginalised, to the idea of “clients” often used in private clinics, or even that of the “beneficiaries” commonly used in other social clinics as it bears a charity connotation. This is how KIA manifests its distinctive political stance, sketching the apparatus of a more-​than-​social clinic, from a space of healthcare provision to a health community. Yet, the actual entanglements that materially emerge through the performative reiterations of KIA’s everyday practices arguably swerve from the intentions of those who attempted to craft them. This signals the emergence of new and unintended boundaries. There was a persistent antagonism between KIA’s alternative mode of organising and the spectre of the mainstream clinic. Despite its absence, the traditional clinic deploys its ongoing antagonism through dispersed practices: The recalcitrant proserhomenos who asks for the doctor or the proserhomenos-​dentist who defies cooperation. The presence of the “reluctant” versus “engaged” proserhomenos nicely illustrates the messiness of mundane practices of resistance, particularly cogent for alternative organisations that experimentally engage with novel reconfigurings of power. It is through such uncertain and contested everyday practices that KIA traces its own strategy. Boundaries were disrupted when people disengaged from “being patients” and become “proserhomenos,” when new initiatives such as that of integrative medicine challenged the traditionally held roles of caretakers and caregivers or when the sharing of dental tools created the conditions to reinvent the relations between proserhomenos, while reconfiguring dentistry as a cooperative and collective enterprise. Looking more closely at some of their initiatives (diabetes group session and integrative medicine) designed to provide a more holistic approach to medical care, we witness how new ways of “knowing” about healthcare were gradually produced, boundaries altered, assumed identities questioned, and relationships problematised. At the diabetes group sessions, for instance, medical personnel (GP, dentist, psychologists, pharmacist, dietitian, and physiotherapist), non-​medical personnel, diabetes patients, and their relatives or friends were all coming together to share their knowledge and experiences irrespective of participants’ roles or specialisations. In similar fashion, the

64  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi integrative medicine initiative was designed to offer a holistic approach to medical treatment. These sessions typically lasted around 1.5 hours and were supported using a Health card, designed by KIA’s members. The use of the card, a six-​page long document featuring four categories: (a) basic personal information, (b) social life, (c) lifestyle, and (d) full medical record, had unanticipated effects for all proserhomenos, prompting them to invent new ways of connecting with each other, encouraging doctors to reflect more critically on the conventional practices of their specialisation and patients to reflect more on their own experiences living with a health condition and become more active in dealing with it. Such material practices produce new ways of exerting power, disrupting the dominant apparatus of the clinic. Although some of these practices had a degree of intentionality in terms of creating the possibilities for more collaborative relations, other initiatives, such as the cooperative dentistry, were far from intentional and had gradually emerged once dentists had to work alongside other dentists and non-​medical professionals. How equipment should be sterilised or what material should be used were matters that required ongoing negotiation and collective agreement. Setting specific protocols and knowledge-​sharing processes on such mundane practices was crucial for the functioning of the dentistry, yet, the collective use of dental tools was also a source of tensions and disruption of the dentist’s authority, while the absence of private “ownership” forced all proserhomenos involved to negotiate and reconfigure their professional identity. The dentist as an “artist” versus the “cooperative dentist” is an illustrative example of the persistent antagonism within KIA and the role of the tools in resolving this conflict. Tools are collectively owned, and they have specific necessities (need to be sterilised for instance), and this constitutes their agency that acts upon the actions of the conflicting strategies of dentistry. The mundane, nonhuman entanglement of the dental tools, bacteria, and sterilising chemicals modifies the actions of all dentists, subsuming them into a unique strategy that defines a horizon for a radically different way of exerting power. In this section, we have tried to illustrate how resistance is far from binary, instrumental, and reactive to power. We have reflected on a range of experimental initiatives that have contributed to the development of new ways of interaction and knowledge that challenge mainstream medical practices and the dominant order of the medical profession. What started out as a space to provide medical care to those excluded from the healthcare system due to politics of austerity has gradually evolved into something more-​than-​social clinic, an ecology of care where a range of mundane practices “create the conditions for the articulation of alternative imaginaries and alternative practices that bypass instituted power and generate alternative modes of existence” (Papadopoulos, 2018, p. 198). Resistance as reparations and recuperations: The case of Ri.Maflow Ri.Maflow is a recuperated factory that during ten years of resistance has evolved into a unique project of experimentation based on solidarity,

Everyday micro-resistances and horizons of radical solidarity  65 mutualism, and autogestion. It is located in Trezzano Sul Naviglio, an industrial area near Milan. Even when it was a thriving economic centre, Trezzano appeared gritty and lifeless as any industrial town. Years of delocalisation and global competition have condemned it to an even more desolate torpor. In this context, Ri.Maflow is not only a space for experimenting with alternative practices of work and production, but a vital and expansive site of resistance that repairs this broken urban ecology of despair through its everyday practices of mundane creation and experimentation. Today Ri.Maflow has finally managed to find its own space, a more modern warehouse obtained legally through a hard-​fought agreement with local authorities. This is the result of over a decade of stubborn and obstinate resistance and solidarity. This story starts with Maflow, a company producing components for the automotive trade. At the peak of production, the factory in Trezzano counted 330 workers. In 2009, the financial crisis hits hard and Maflow files for bankruptcy. One year later, another corporate group, Boryszew, acquires Maflow and relaunches production in Trezzano, but most of the workers lose their jobs in the process. In 2012 the factory shuts down, abandoning all its workers to a state of despair. All the machinery is removed from the factory, which remains empty, but not abandoned. It is capital that has abandoned the factory, depriving it of its productive potential, but the workers, or those who have just lost their jobs, are still there, outside its gates. The pickets outside the factory are already the expression of an ongoing, everyday resistance made of micro-​gestures of solidarity, mundane practices of collective action, and imaginative horizons of emancipation that pervade each step of the story of Ri.Maflow. Because the pickets connect the struggle and the protest against the closure to the affirmation of the vital right of these workers to a dignified work. It is in this continuity that resistance finds its oscillation between confrontation and creation, between the deployment of a fight against an enemy and the transformative exploration of what is possible even in a situation of despair. It is probably in those long hours outside the factory that the idea of occupying and reclaiming the factory turns from a bold provocation to a concrete project, from utopian thinking to the actual planning of its material execution: How to break the lock of the gates, who is going to bring a pair of bolt cutters, whether to sleep in at night, who to call in support. The occupation is definitely a significant moment of resistance for Ri.Maflow. It is an event that introduces a temporal caesura between a state of despair and a new beginning. Before the occupation, we have the jobless workers on one side and the empty factory on the other, separated physically by the gates of the factory and symbolically, but no less materially, by the ownership rights of the creditors on the warehouse. This is when separation also represents despair. After the occupation, the workers and their warehouse are once again paired together, despair is replaced by repair, and a whole series of new experimentations and new ways of living become finally possible. The occupation, as an event, is a macro-​practice of resistance that turns

66  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi despair into repair. But for as much as it is tempting to coagulate all our fascination for resistance to this singular glorious moment, we need to carefully appreciate resistance in the thickness of its complexity and the wealth of its micro-​practices. When we think of macro moments of resistance, we come close to Alain Badiou’s concept of the event: “a pure break with the becoming of an object of the world, … an intemporal instant which renders disjunct the previous state of an object (the site) and the state that follows” (Badiou, 2007, p. 39). The event of resistance marks a rupture, an absolute separation with the rest of history given in its isolation and circumscription. Against Badiou’s concept of event, Daniel Bensaid highlights the theoretical and strategical problems that this account of resistance implies: “[d]‌etached from its historical conditions, pure diamond of truth, the event … is akin to a miracle. … Its rarity prevents us from thinking its expansion” (Bensaid, 2004, p. 101). On the one hand, there is power in its ordinarity; on the other hand, there is resistance in its miraculous exception, always already on the verge of vanishing. Not only resistance as event undermines the contemporaneity and coextesiveness of power and resistance, but it also reduces the crucial contributions of a multiplicity of resistant practices that precede the miracle of resistance and these mundane and everyday practices that sustain and reproduce the creative potential of resistance. The notion of rarity has the effect of closing off the possibility of thinking the expansion of resistance (as continuous multiplicity of practices), but also the possibility of thinking resistance as expansion: proliferation, creation, openings, becomings. Ri.Maflow’s story of resistance acknowledges its expansiveness, its continuity that equally pervades its practices before and after the occupation: “We didn’t surrender, and continuing to resist and fight, we recuperated the factory and started our project, our re-​birth” (http://​rimaf​l ow.it, our translation). The mundane and everyday practices that constitute this story of resistance range from the choice of the name and their keywords to the productive activities and the organisational dynamics. Despite each of these aspects taken in its singularity may seem minor, it is the complex connections of these supposedly minor practices that weave a robust resistance in the face of a constitutive fragility. Because Ri.Maflow, as any resistant story, moves its steps through multiple experimentations embodying a fragility that is embedded in the constant threats from a hostile environment dominated by the market, its competitive logic, and its hierarchical practices. Experimenting with new practices and creating new ways of living means engaging in everyday resistance that constantly marks and reproduces the end of the old and the beginning of a new, alternative present. The choice of the name is significant in this sense. Maflow was the name of the company before the factory shut down and left its workers unemployed. The Ri –​(the Italian equivalent of re-​) –​in Ri.Maflow stands for an ideal continuity, but also a new beginning, the start of a new adventure: a new enterprise, not only understood as a productive activity, a business or a company, but also in the other,

Everyday micro-resistances and horizons of radical solidarity  67 often neglected, meaning of the word that designs an unexpectedly successful achievement against all the odds. More in general, the Ri (re-​) affirms the connection of this enterprise with a whole series of keywords that map the ideological and political horizon of Ri.Maflow: resistance, revolution, reversal, reappropriation, but also repair and recycle. All these words are painted on graffiti and banners outside the old warehouse and they often appear on posters, leaflets, and on their website, a constant reminder that reinforces and reinvigorates their everyday practices. These words constitute the culture of the organisation, together with their unequivocable definition of Ri.Maflow that often pops up on their merchandise: “Fabbrica autogestita e senza padroni,” self-​managed factory with no bosses. More than a mere definition, it is a programmatic affirmation of an alternative way of organising, horizontal, participatory, egalitarian, and mutualistic. Beyond these symbolic aspects that express the creative and resistant character of Ri.Maflow, we can appreciate how the strategic and political choice of engaging with operations of recycling goes well beyond its business value. Not only is recycling a source of income for this recuperated and reappropriated enterprise. Recycling is the hallmark of a regenerative process of resistance that permeates the everyday operations at the level of space, materials, and people. As Massimo, one of the founders of Ri-​Maflow, puts it in his book: We thought that those materials that others considered waste, for us could have been resources. We were determined to reconvert the factory ecologically by recuperating waste materials, recreating 300 jobs, as many as there were before the crisis. We started walking on a path of possible utopia. (Lettieri, 2019, p. 35, our translation)

Recycling express a wide ecological stance, an ethico-​political gesture. All activities at Ri.Maflow are oriented towards recuperation, repair, and recycling. The first act of recuperation regards the warehouse. Its closure had accelerated those processes of environmental degradation that typically affect industrial areas. The soil was polluted by the presence of toxic agents in the aquifer, while the warehouses had roofs in asbestos. An abandoned factory is a potential environmental catastrophe. As it happened to many other abandoned warehouses, it would have not been long before the site was to be converted into a waste storage and then burnt down provoking an environmental disaster, one of the most lucrative businesses for eco-​mafia in the last years, with 690 warehouses burnt down in Italy between 2016 and 2019 (Castaldo & Gabanelli 2019). After the occupation, it becomes necessary to intervene on the warehouse and transform it into a space that can safely be opened to the workers and to the community, neutralising the potential risks for the environment. “We ventured on the roof and cleaned up the obstructed gutters that had caused the flooding of the warehouse. We then cleaned the floor and convert the warehouse into a covered marketplace open to the public” (Lettieri, 2019, p. 59). Through these steps, Ri.Maflow opens up to its territory, developing

68  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi a symbiotic relation with the wider community through an expansive process that is also regenerative as it reawakens a desolate industrial area from its torpor: “Ri-​Maflow is the active core of the town, despite Trezzano sul Naviglio is the typical dormitory town of the Milanese hinterland” (Lettieri, 2019, p. 60). More in general, recuperation and recycling become the core activities that generate income for Ri.Maflow. These can be considered as everyday practices of resistance as they represent an ethico-​political choice to fight the tremendous capitalist link between indefinite accumulation of wealth and indefinite accumulation of waste through an active engagement with ecological practices that transform waste into something valuable. The main business is originally the ecological dismantling of washing machines and the reparation and sale of old IT equipment and devices. Perhaps the most interesting set of practices in this sense is the idea of “modernariat.” While generating income through house removals, some of the materials and the objects collected are reconverted into artworks by the artisan laboratories that Ri.Maflow hosts. It is a creative enterprise that recycles waste into art, a mundane process of valorisation that includes a series of transformative practices. But it is not just the space (the warehouse) or materials that are recycled. Probably the most important recuperation regards the people in and around Ri.Maflow. When the factory shuts down, the moment is so dramatic to the point that the workers do not lose only their job, but also their identity, their dignity, and their sense of belonging: “We were kicked out and disposed as human waste” as Stefano puts it in Azzellini and Ressler’s film Occupy, Resist, Produce: Ri.Maflow (2014). This aspect of recycling, the recuperation of life for otherwise despaired people is a continuous process of resistance that starts from the occupation of the factory and gets reinforced through the everyday practices of working together, managing the factory together, reinventing production, reinventing their lives, and establishing new relationships among themselves and with the wider community. In this sense, we see resistance at work in each assembly, where workers need to resist the old habits to take orders from managers and take responsibility for imagining new ways of generating income, new ways of distributing that income, and new ways of using their labour also for other purposes, as for all their ecological and political initiatives. It is in the collective management of the organisation that resistance affirms itself as a mundane creative process, consisting of what are perhaps minor decisions on the operations of the factory, but loaded with an underlying horizon of meaning that proposes a collective experimentation with alternative practices of organising. Resistance is expressed also by an alternative use of time. It is interesting, for instance, how the moment of lunch is perceived. As Abraham, one of the workers at Ri.Maflow, tells us during an informal conversation, lunch is unusually long, a collective moment of joy that resembles more a theatrical piece rather than a mere break between working hours. The wealth of these collective moments is such that he says that it is a massive regret to miss a lunch when calling sick.

Everyday micro-resistances and horizons of radical solidarity  69 While these processes we have illustrated so far express mundane practices of resistance that are connected to various of form of recycling, repair, and recuperation, there are other aspects of Ri.Maflow that even more explicitly connect the reproducibility of their organisation through production with a clear political horizon of resistance. It is, for instance, the case of their production of alcoholic drinks. After Ri.Moncello, their first liqueur, they produce the Vodka Kollontai, a feminist, anti-​sexist spirit. Amaro Partigiano is possibly the drink that mostly shows how that production can be an act of everyday resistance connecting to a wider horizon of political defiance. It is a digestive liqueur made of herbs carefully selected in the “resistant woods of Lunigiana,” a mountainous region between Tuscany and Liguria, where clashes between partisans of Italian Resistance and the Nazi-​fascists took place. The label on the bottle beautifully remarks its political spirit: “Naturalmente di parte,” naturally partisan, naturally taking sides. Ri.Maflow is a resistant enterprise, a recuperated factory, a cooperative with a rebel hearth. This is evident from its ostensive politics. But its resistant stance can only be fully appreciated if we take the time to observe these tiny everyday practices, each of them containing the potential for a transformative and revolutionary future. Conclusion The two stories we present in this chapter might disappoint the reader who feels the fascination for the grand events of resistance, who expects from resistance that radical change and transformation that ends once and for all injustice and despair. But perhaps KIA and Ri.Maflow can give us the chance not only to propose an alternative understanding of resistance, but to reimagine altogether what resistance is and what we can expect from engaging with resistant practices. KIA and Ri.Maflow are two extraordinary stories of resistance that break with the ordinary day by day, everyday micro-​revolutions, continuous refusal of an unjust existent and creative reinvention of the world we want to live in. What are everyday resistances? It is first and foremost the disillusionment with grand events, with the purity of these isolated moments where resistance descends upon us out of the blue to then disappear the following instant. Resistance always emerges from a continuity of practices that change, find diversions, encounter obstructions, and then create new trajectories. Resistance is extraordinary in the sense that it defies power, dominant ways of living, and common ways of organising. But at the same time, resistance is extremely ordinary; it belongs to our everyday lives; it shows up with different intensities, at different times, individually or collective. But the relation of resistance and the everyday is also a matter of ethical stance, an ethico-​political conduct. Even after the supposedly grand events, resistance requires everyday engagement, continuous application, active participation to micro-​practices that sustain and nurture alternative project, and new forms of living.

70  George Kokkinidis and Marco Checchi This is what we find at KIA and Ri.Maflow: Resistance is continuous and manifests itself even in the apparently most trivial aspects of the life of an organisation that consciously adopts a political perspective of solidarity and mutualism. In their everyday practices, KIA and Ri.Maflow find resistance beyond its oppositional stance (Checchi, 2014). It is not so much about fighting against the privatisation of healthcare or the property rights of a bank that wants its warehouse back. Resistance is about inventing new practices, creating the conditions for an alternative way of working, an alternative way of caring and providing healthcare. Resistance is about everyday experimentation with new forms of life (Papadopoulos, 2018). It is an art of connecting, of repairing after the multiple ruptures and separations. As KIA deals with fragmented bodies, divided into healthy and ill organs, separated from their communities and from their social and economic conditions, Ri.Maflow engages with the multiple processes of degradation and destruction at environmental, social, and political level that are typical of contemporary capitalism. It is easy to succumb to despair, not just as a subjective psychological state, but as a collective resignation, as if we were unable or unwilling to come together and intervene to stop those processes. As Guattari warns us: “It is not only species that are becoming extinct but also the words, phrases and gestures of human solidarity” (Guattari, 2014, p. 29). Ri.Maflow and KIA instead recuperate those words, phrases, and gestures; they apply them to their everyday practices in a radical mutualism that resists ecological, social, and economic degradation. Resistance marks the passage from despair to repair: It is an act of care that accounts for the fragility of our existences and our ecologies, but also for the fragility of these resistant experimentations that need to be reproduced through mundane, everyday practices. Resistance is a matter of staying everyday with this fragility, an ethico-​political stance that continuously reaffirms a revolutionary horizon of solidarity, care, and mutualism. Note 1 For a more extensive analysis of this initiative please read Kokkinidis & Checchi, (2023).

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6 “It’s not like it just happened that day” Anti-​racist solidarity in two Glasgow neighbourhoods Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey

Introduction In this chapter, we explore spaces and places of resistance, solidarity, and transformative action with and for racialised minorities and people in the asylum process in the city of Glasgow. An important jumping off point, however, must be a critical engagement with what we mean by solidarity and resistance. The work of De Genova et al. (2022) is particularly insightful here, offering a critical lens that reminds us of how memory of struggles and acts of solidarity can be reactivated in the present. They point to the value of locating current solidarity work in the legacy of long-​standing political struggles (see also Mainwaring et al., 2020) and of the need to see solidarity spaces in and of themselves as a complex, uneven terrain shaped, and moulded by the contours of power relations. We can also discern something interesting about what forms of solidarity emerge in response to “crisis” and about the people deemed worthy of solidarity at different moments in time. As many thousands walked across Europe’s newly fortified internal borders in 2015, the response of shock, horror, and shame was met with a need to “do something” for those people. But at the very same time, there was ambivalence for racialised migrants and refugees already in European cities. So already, we can trace hierarchies of welcome, of support, and, indeed, of solidarity. We begin this chapter with a short overview of the “politics of solidarity” as it pertains to migrant communities, but also with attention to the politics of place. As such, we provide a brief account of the history of solidarity in Glasgow. We then seek to tie these strands together into a dual politics of austerity and of anti-​immigration through the lens of crises. Finally, we outline two important case studies of solidarity in Glasgow as exemplars of what is and can be possible and of how seemingly strong institutions can be defeated. A brief note on methodology: This chapter was collectively written by its four authors. It draws upon our many years of experience of working with migrant advocacy and antiracist and grassroots organisations in our DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-6

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  73 varied careers as academics and practitioners in academic and community settings. Our “case studies” draw, in part, from Smina and Ashli’s respective PhD research projects which are Glasgow-​based ethnographies focusing on experiences of and resistance to state racism in Scotland and racialised capitalism with Roma migrant workers, respectively, and which are based on extensive observational fieldwork. The case studies are also informed by the wider ongoing collaborative work on solidarity practices and resistance in Glasgow by all four authors. Civic and political solidarity The highly mediatised expressions of wilkommenskultur that dominated our screens in summer 2015 have now largely dissipated from our train stations, city squares, screens, front pages, and social media. Noting this pattern of change in acts and representations of solidarity emphasises the value in centring genealogies of solidarity and how the past is put to work in the present. Following De Genova et al. (2022, p.51), this requires us to shift our attention away from “politically visible moments of action to the laborious work of solidarity practices over time and to the opening up of political spaces to which these have contributed.” We explore some of these ever-​evolving forms of solidarity in our case studies in this chapter. Importantly, the opening of political spaces cannot be disaggregated from a wider set of oppressions with systemic causes (Vickers, 2021). Vickers goes on to argue that within the context of long-​term struggle and action, consciousness-​raising of systemic issues when connected to organising and mobilising for change is at least as vital as the short-​term wins, as we will see in our two case studies. We adopt an understanding of solidarity that reaches across various lines of difference and status, pulling in a wide range of people from migrant and non-​migrant backgrounds who collectively build what Tazzioli describes as transversal solidarities (Tazzioli, 2020). Transversal in this sense connects people and struggles. It seeks to unsettle and refuse the divisive categorisations of “migrants” and “citizens” who instead mobilise around shared issues and causes such as understanding changing legislation and its impact on rights. Such an understanding of transversal alliances builds on what Sivanandan (1990) called communities of resistance that emerge as forms of urban protest movements, or which Mohanty (2003) describes as communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. They both speak to common differences forming the basis of deep solidarity that seeks to address discrimination, challenge underlying inequalities, and fight for social justice. This may also be conceptualised, following Scholz (2008) as different forms of unity –​ civic and political –​between citizens and non-​citizens in a political state that connects them to one another. These different forms of unity are grounded in a commitment to fighting particular injustices, and not necessarily rooted in shared identities as we will go on to explore in this chapter. The spaces of solidarity and evolving alliances that do emerge are equally shaped by positionalities

74  Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey and unequal social relations that dictate who speaks for whom, which voices are heard and listened to, and which knowledge is accepted as knowledge. We also recognise that experiences of opposition or indeed empowerment may mask continuing marginalisation (Sivanandan, 1990). Glasgow’s activist landscape In the case of Glasgow, the political battleground from which solidarity is evident has tended to be based historically around workplace organisation; the work-​in led by Jimmy Reid and the Upper Clyde shipbuilders in the early 1970s is the most celebrated, but so too the more recent strike in 2018 for equal pay by mostly women carers and against the city authorities. The tendency in this city has been to corral politics into existing political structures, political parties, and the trade union movement. So, whilst the city celebrates aspects of a radical industrial past, it is important that this does not obscure the various ways in which official institutional politics have been implicated in creating the very conditions that help to produce both misery and revolt. Nevertheless, there are tangible historical moments that help to provide context for where we are now. The story of Mary Barbour, who led the rent strikes in the 1920s, is of huge importance, and the long-​standing resistance by the city’s large Irish catholic minority against sectarianism, the term used instead of anti-​Irish racism, are but two. The fact that Glasgow, along with Dundee, West Dunbartonshire, and North Lanarkshire were the only council areas to vote against continuing union with the UK is also a sign of at the very least deep unhappiness with the institutional status quo. Indeed, Featherstone (2012) suggests that issues of constitutional change and political change have come to be articulated together, that for many, the campaign for independence came to be seen as opposition to austerity. We can also see more recent examples of migrant solidarity in the city that can be connected to everyday social struggles and crises and show not only deep-​rooted examples of resistance but also the ubiquity of state violence in the form of enforced destitution and forced removals (cf. Agustín & Jørgensen, 2016, p. 227). The activist and advocacy group Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees emerged in 2001 out of existing activist organisations, with the backing of various trade unions and politicians from several parties although with a locus in a campaigning Trotskyist organisation. The example of the “Glasgow Girls” is a key one here and shows not only long-​standing examples of resistance but also the ubiquity of state violence in the form of forced removals. In 2005, these girls from Drumchapel High School, a dispersal neighbourhood in Glasgow, so one with a short but vivid experience of refugee settlement, campaigned against the Home Office on behalf of their disappearing fellow students, a story that subsequently became both a play and a TV musical. A small group of huge practical importance is the Unity Centre, a radical no borders activist group set up in 2005, located near the UK Home Office’s main Glasgow office, where people seeking asylum are expected to report either daily, weekly, or monthly. Unity has people sign in

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  75 before reporting to the Home Office to record who is then taken away to detention so that their legal representatives can be informed and move to have them returned. The sedimentation of these practical knowledges and experiences of struggle and resistance is continually activated and reactivated in the present and are still very much part of the city’s activist landscape. It is important, of course, to distinguish between the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we would rather not tell, and this is as clear regarding race and migration as in any other area of politics (Mainwaring et al., 2020). Glasgow is a city built on the twin pillars of shipbuilding and slavery. It is a city with a long history of anti-​Irish racism. It is a city where Firsat Dag, a Turkish man seeking asylum, was murdered in 2001 in a racist attack, not long after the implementation of dispersal policy to some of the city’s poorest areas. Thus, racism is very much part of the city’s present as well as past. Kelliher (2018, p. 2) describes the collective memory of solidarity practices as “how history continues to shape contemporary practices of solidarity.” Whilst this history does not necessarily play out in straightforward ways, there are also hopeful signs. Whilst dispersal to Glasgow was largely housing driven, meaning people were housed in empty homes in deprived areas, these are also areas that as well as containing the racism mentioned above have a history of community activism, having had to struggle for everything they have. After the murder of Firsat Dag, there was a large joint march to the Council by people seeking asylum and new and long-​ standing local community activists demanding more for both. Austerity, immigration, and crises Solidarity action cannot be bracketed off from its socio-​political and geographical context. It requires us to look at the intersecting nature of two sets of processes and the ways that they produce contingent solidarities. The context of reception facing particular migrant populations cannot be separated from the context of austerity, they are both designed to exclude and intimidate and dehumanise. As Morris (2019) points out, these two areas tend to be looked at separately, but they are linked by both being about the ways that specific populations are constructed, and then to the ways that this construction impacts on lives. Much has been written about how welfare conditionality and other forms of rights stratification have impacted on the poor in the UK and is deployed as a means of social control. Indeed Tyner (2016, p. 285) powerfully defines austerity deaths as being “murdered by the material inequalities often born out of biopolitical regimes that are increasingly driven by the logic of profit.” It may also be of value to explore such deaths in relation to Engels’ notion of social murder, or indeed more recently to necropolitics (Mbembé, 2003) and slow violence (Mayblin et al., 2020). As Mayblin et al. (2020, p. 111) suggest, the UK Government “meets” its obligations under the refugee convention, legal obligations are fulfilled “to an absolute minimum, to a point where people seeking asylums are merely prevented from physically dying, though often with long-​lasting consequences,” giving this slow violence

76  Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey a camouflaging effect. Such state practices are often justified, or more directly populations are often conditioned to accept them, on the grounds of an imagined crisis. From 2008, the economic crash provides the state with the justification for a shrinking of the welfare state, defined by Blyth (2013) as “dangerous nonsense.” And from the late 1990s, the “asylum seeker” folk devil became the symbolic totem of longer-​standing migration “crises,” the label “refugee” becoming a term of abuse and even a proxy for racism (see Cohen, 2011; Philo, Briant, & Donald, 2013). What this also means, as our case studies suggest, is that forms of solidarity that act as both a counter and resistance to these state practices can interact and learn from one another to build broader solidaristic practices. Indeed, in presenting our case studies, we suggest that one of the lessons of the “battle of Kenmure Street” (Smina’s case study) and the battle for Roma housing rights (Ashli’s case study) has been the importance of mainstreaming social justice issues into wider critiques of state behaviour. Significantly, in our case studies, we are looking at acts of resistance and solidarity practices that occur in the microphysical spaces of everyday life –​the home, the street –​comparatively speaking less visible than the higher profile forms of migrant protest and solidarity. As DeGenova and Tazzioli suggest when discussing border struggles in the everyday context, these struggles are in many respects the mundane practices of “simply” going about one’s life under the specific circumstances of precarity or extraordinary burdens that are inflicted upon migrants: working, securing housing, acquiring food and other necessities, and moving around relatively freely. (2022, p. 28) Thus, the removal of rights to a home for people whose asylum claim has been refused can be tied into broader campaigns to both end homelessness and to create a context where everyone has the right to a decent home simply by dint of being rather than belonging. In this sense, locality and place take on crucial significance as how and where everyday solidarities are built is at least in part determined at street or community level. By referring to politics of place, we lean on long-​standing concerns about the ways in which social relations are reflective of spatial and historical contexts (Keith & Pile, 1993). We conceive of solidarity, following Featherstone (2012) and Agustín and Jørgensen (2016) as something that is produced from below, which responds to slow violence and then produces pressure of change. The latter argues that solidarity is contentious, inventive of new imaginaries, and generative of political subjectivities and collective identities. The former, following Marx’s notion of pressure emerging from without, defines solidarity as “a relation forged through political struggle which seeks to challenge forms of oppression” (Feathersone, 2012, p. 5). Featherstone (2012) points to the inventiveness of solidarities, to new political configurations and transversal alliances that can emerge in their creation

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  77 that reshape understandings of what is possible and offer new possibilities for hope. It is to some of this inventiveness that we now turn as we shift focus from the city to the neighbourhood. Specifically, we explore two neighbourhoods in the Southside of the city, less than a mile apart: Pollokshields and Govanhill. Pollokshields houses one of the largest ethnic minority populations in Scotland, the largest group is Muslim and of Pakistani origin. Govanhill has long been Scotland’s most diverse neighbourhood, a neighbourhood that the large majority of the approximately 5,000 Roma who have moved to Scotland since the accession of more Eastern European countries to the EU in 2004 and 2007 call home. Case study: “These are our neighbours, let them go!” Building local community resistance to state hostility and anti-​immigration violence On 13 May 2021, an immigration enforcement van arrived at Kenmure Street, in the neighbourhood of Pollokshields. When the van arrived, no one knew the target. The 13 May was also Eid Ul Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan. In Pollokshields this has always been a day of public and collective celebration, and so whilst special as a key religious festival, its celebration locally is in many ways, an “ordinary” event. A member of a local anti-​ racist organisation No Evictions Network (NEN) on their way to work around 9.30 am posted on one of the Network’s WhatsApp groups that they had spotted the immigration van. Smina, author of this case study and a member of NEN, also received this message along with others and responded to the call to “get down there” (NEN WhatsApp Updates Group). Over the course of around ten hours the numbers protesting grew from a handful of locals and organised activists to hundreds of protesters. Many from a multi-​ethnic Glasgow community came out in solidarity shouting “these are our neighbours, let them go” surrounding the van, itself surrounded by police offers (who had come in vans and horses to this local area) to prevent the detention and possible deportation of, who we were to later learn, the two Indian men detained in the van, Sumit Sehdev and Lakhvir Singh. This was an anti-​racist solidarity; it was explicitly and vocally in opposition to the government’s racist immigration and asylum system. It was also representative of the local community; young girls dressed up in their new Eid clothes were in the street with home-​made banners, a local bakery donated an Eid cake for the protesters, local shops brought down snacks and water whilst a local gym allowed protesters to use their toilets (Akhtar, 2021). One activist and member of NEN referred to in the press as “van man” crawled under the immigration van and stayed there for over eight hours to prevent the immigration van from moving (Glasgow Times, 2021). He later described this action as “buying time for people to get there” (NEN statement posted on Twitter). The protest ended ten hours later with the unthinkable: the Home Office standing down and allowing the men to be released back into the community. Whilst one of Glasgow’s activist lawyers, Aamer Anwar, liaised with the police and

78  Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey immigration enforcement officers to help secure the men’s release, it was only made possible by the presence of hundreds of protesters beside him. Different activists, therefore, each had a key role to play on the day of the protest. This was no accidental solidarity, and its success is due to both long-​established and more recent networks and organising of transversal solidarity groups. Nor was it a moment devoid of its own context. The NEN who set the Kenmure Street protest in motion was established in 2018. It emerged from another protest, that time against SERCO, the UK Government’s asylum housing contractor who on 27 July 2018 announced their intention to evict 330 people in the asylum system by changing their locks, giving only 14 days’ notice (Glasgow Times, 2019). A few days after this announcement, activists held a rally in Glasgow city centre, which was attended by over 300 people making a commitment to challenge the evictions, and a coalition of refugee and asylum seeker advocacy groups was born, committed to resisting this violent policy of forced destitution. Opposition to the evictions was organised at two levels: First, third-​sector organisations and a law firm supporting refugees and people in the asylum system formed the “Stop Lock Change Coalition.” Second, grassroots opposition was organised by NEN which established itself following the initial city centre demonstration by activists from the Unity Centre, Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment (MORE) (a grassroots organisation whose members are predominantly people with lived experience of the asylum system), and Living Rent (a tenant’s union). The Coalition was successful in challenging most evictions, on a temporary basis. Whilst the Coalition pursued legal routes to delay the evictions, NEN continued to work with people in the asylum system by providing English classes and everyday solidarity initiatives and opportunities to build friendships. When the COVID-​19 pandemic hit, the UK government put a temporary pause on evictions. In response to the pandemic in March 2020, the Home Office through accommodation providers MEARS, determined to house recently arrived asylum seekers and people on hard case support whose claims had been refused in hotel accommodation. This accommodation response was framed by the UK government as a “public health informed” approach (Home Office blog 2020). People were moved at short notice. The £5.00/​day financial support was stopped on the basis that food and shelter needs were being met in the hotels through full board provision, resulting in people seeking asylum referring to their conditions as “hotel detention” (NEN Twitter, 18 June 2020; Armstrong et al., 2020). NEN responded with online protests held during lockdown with activists displaying banners on Twitter and Facebook (NEN Twitter, 13 June 2020). One outcome of people being placed in hotels was that they developed networks amongst themselves (Akhtar 2020). MORE activists put together a database of people in the hotels and distributed phone top-​ups so that they could keep in touch with family back home. The solidarity from NEN resulted in people in the asylum system accommodated in the hotels joining NEN and becoming activists themselves. Farid (not his real name), a man in hotel accommodation organised a food strike with residents refusing to eat the mouldy and stale food that was regularly given to them. People in the

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  79 asylum system who were living in the hotels began to attend zoom meetings held by NEN and proposed a demonstration in George Square in the heart of Glasgow at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests during lockdown, making key demands including an end to hotel detention and reinstatement of the financial allowance (NEN Zoom meeting, 15 June 2020). The food strike and the rally were the first examples of the NEN being led by the activism of people in the asylum system. But equally of significance was the sustainability of NEN and its ability to engage its members into an activism which was responsive to a range of rapidly changing political circumstances. Because NEN now had an established profile as grassroots activists amongst refugee solidarity networks as well as via media platforms, when it put out the Kenmure Street protest call, people listened and acted. The spectacular battle fought and won against the Home Office on that May day in Kenmure Street was made possible by the pressure and protest work on anti-​immigrant injustice, achieved by relatively small and new grassroots organisations which have formed out of Glasgow’s history of refugee and migrant solidarity from months before, if not years, thus demonstrating Featherstone’s (2012) argument that solidarity creates new possibilities for change and for future alliances and new solidarities. In this case the legacy of the Kenmure street protest has enabled refugee and migrant solidarity to be connected to the struggle for climate justice, coordinating a migrant bloc on the COP26 demonstration in Glasgow which was both loud and big where they argued that there is no climate justice without migrant justice. What’s more, the local, “on your doorstep” everyday nature of the Home Office’s violent act that day on Kenmure Street, produced a local activism and resistance that has continued since. Alongside the mundane messages looking for tradespeople, promoting local events and item exchanges, the local Pollokshields neighbourhood Facebook group (I Love Pollokshields) now regularly shares posts on local mobilisation against the Nationality and Borders Bill which is making its way through Parliament at the time of writing. This Facebook group is building its own transversal alliances with NEN, the Bowling Green, a local community space, Govanhill Baths in nearby Govanhill, and many others, emerging as a local community of resistance building in confidence and strength. Most recently, it joined Refugees for Justice, a campaigning group established after the Park Inn Hotel tragedy in Glasgow on 26 June 2020 fighting for justice and accountability on a march from Kenmure Street to George Square to support the unveiling of a bench to mark the presence of people seeking asylum in the City. The banners leading the march read: “Stop the Raids” and “Remember Kenmure Street.” Case study: “Whose streets? Our streets!” Building community power with Roma amidst interconnected struggles on Glasgow’s Southside Romano Lav was founded in 2013 by Marcela Adamova to challenge the racism, discrimination, and disadvantage faced by Roma migrants in Glasgow.

80  Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey Ashli, author of this case study, has worked at Romano Lav since 2016. Whilst a small grassroots organisation based in Govanhill, its anti-​racist projects and actions frequently traverse local, national, transnational, and international terrains. This is partly a question of history, as well as one of geography, state violence, and their subjection to “de facto immigration control” (Erel, Murji, & Nahaboo, 2016, p. 1345), with the “Europeanisation” (Vermeersch, 2012) of their racialisation across the continent homogenising their struggle despite their dispersal. Romano Lav thus necessarily fights on multiple fronts simultaneously, but all its projects are united by one overarching objective: the struggle for racial justice, for Roma emancipation, and for the empowerment of Romani youth, in particular. This is also the context that renders Romano Lav’s praxis intelligible. Beyond street work and grassroots projects that strive to meet immediate community needs and build community power, Romano Lav frequently highlights rights violations experienced by Roma throughout Europe. Features on issues ranging from forced sterilisations and destruction of camps to environmental racism are covered on Roma News and Views –​a broadcasting project designed to allow Romano Lav’s youth team to continue working together when estranged elsewhere during lockdown. This initially playful pilot project would go on to play a vital role in generating international press attention in the case of Stanislav Tomáš, a Czech Romani man who died in police custody on the streets of Teplice in June 2021 in a manner hauntingly similar to George Floyd, with police officers kneeling on his neck for several minutes. The young “correspondents” released a “breaking news” segment on social media that featured video footage of Stanislav’s death accompanying Romano Lav’s press statement (Romano Lav, 2021). Less than 24 hours later, their words would feature in the Washington Post (2021). Demanding #JusticeForStanislav, their call proliferated in vigils and protests across Europe, reaching Strasbourg some months later as MEPs debated police brutality towards Roma (Romea, 2021). The anti-​racist activism of Romano Lav and the communities that it organises in Govanhill, then, are both shaped by its urban everyday character, but also necessarily transcends it. This is because it is very localised in its spatial context but is simultaneously much bigger given that the struggle for Roma rights and for racial justice is necessarily transnational. The racialisation of Roma migrants in Govanhill is overdetermined by place and territorial stigma, “such that it has become possible to evoke the ‘Roma problem’ locally without naming Roma at all” (Mullen, 2018, p. 221). Whilst anti-​racism has been substantially under-​theorised relative to the abundance of scholarship on racism (Bhattacharyya, Virdee, & Winter, 2020; Harris, 2021) and should not be conceptualised as simply racism’s “inverse” (Joseph-​Salisbury & Connelly, 2021, p. 6), such “metonymic” forms of racism, where race and place are spatially coded, nonetheless create openings for metonymic anti-​racisms to flourish (Elliott-​Cooper, 2018). These openings enable community projects that attempt to (re)claim space, as well as more spontaneous disruptions that defy the hegemonic metonyms associated with

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  81 racially stigmatised neighbourhoods and imbue such places with new sets of meanings. Further, as racisms and their resistance are interconnected struggles, their dialectical relation ensures that victories (as well as defeats) in one singular moment create opportunities and produce cracks to be prised open by like-​minded comrades in others. The Kenmure Street victory described in the case study above created an opening of its own that occurred in an altogether different moment in the autumn of its aftermath. It is to this case we shall now turn. One late September morning, Florica, a Romanian Roma woman, showed up at the Govanhill Baths office, a community space where Romano Lav is based, brandishing letters she could not understand. She spoke Romanes and no English. Amongst her papers was an eviction notice and a court summons. The letter was signed by the Sheriff Officer1 acting on behalf of the local housing association. This defied all logic. Florica had never rented a flat from the housing association, she had a private tenancy. Her family had paid rent to the landlord for five months. It came to light that she had signed a fake tenancy agreement drafted by an alleged landlord who had in fact broken into a vacant housing association flat, changed the locks, and summarily, and illegally, rented it out. Poor housing conditions and exploitative private landlords have long frustrated Roma families attempts to make their homes in Govanhill, whilst overcrowding took on a new salience during the pandemic and evictions continued unabated, despite the moratorium (Clark, 2021). Effectively, Florica and her family were being criminalised for their own exploitation. More than that, the pursuer was the very institution charged with providing housing to those in need. A court hearing decided that Florica’s family were to vacate their home within 21 days (a small concession granted from the seven days that the Housing Association had initially pursued). Further, the exploited tenants were found liable to the housing association for legal expenses and served a bill of £369.79. Meanwhile, the fraudulent landlord faced no consequences. Given that the police had been present at their address when court summons were served, as well as the long-​standing racialised nature of policing locally, including Police Scotland’s aiding of Home Office immigration enforcement officers during their targeted sweeps (Herald, 2017), the family’s reluctance to pursue the matter with the police should be of little surprise. Had the struggle ended there, Florica’s family would have been homeless. It was clear from the outset that legal redress was unlikely to succeed on its own; for the marginalised, justice can rarely be reliably secured within such narrow confines, no less when propertied interests are at stake. The court case was doomed to fail, but essential to contest. Success would necessitate multiple tactics, actors, and coalition building. Romano Lav and partner organisation Living Rent, a tenants’ union, worked together in the background and accompanied by the family, hand-​delivered a letter to the housing association the day before the hearing. It restated Florica’s case, demanded that the eviction be overturned, and appealed to the housing association’s own objectives: In providing safe and

82  Teresa Piacentini, Smina Akhtar, Ashli Mullen, and Gareth Mulvey affordable housing to those in need. Importantly, it stated that Romano Lav, Living Rent, and the broader Southside community would be eager to resist any attempted eviction of the family. The response was near immediate; a meeting was hastily arranged with the housing association’s director for one week later. The interim days were spent preparing for the confrontation. Members of Living Rent’s Member Defence team trained Florica, Rahela, the young Roma woman who would lead the negotiations, and Toni, her fellow Project Coordinator at Romano Lav, in role play workshops, taking turns to play the different parties, exhaustively preparing for every scenario and style of negotiation that could arise. Their confidence grew; they felt they could win. Plans, too, were in place should negotiations fail: a press release followed by a series of escalations, from demonstrations outside the housing association to large-​ scale community mobilisation to physically resist the eviction itself. Yet the threat of this mass mobilisation alone proved to be decisive in securing victory for Florica. The team stood firm and united in their refusal to steer Florica towards declaring homelessness, and this resolve, combined with intentions for escalation being made clear, resulted in an offer of a new tenancy for a nearby property already identified being hastily produced alongside an assurance that no eviction would occur; Florica’s family could remain in their current property whilst the new one was prepared. In sum, legal redress had proven fruitless, but direct action worked. In this respect, the momentum of local community power produced just a mile away on that May afternoon propelled us forward and proved to be pivotal in determining the outcome of this distinct, but interconnected moment of struggle. Florica, Rahela, and their supporting comrades were not alone in that sterile room; they stood on the shoulders of all those who resisted and continue to resist in the Southside and beyond. Whilst the promise of “a Kenmure Street” was not explicitly articulated, it need not have been, it was the imaginary that provided the context and altered the contours of what was politically possible in its aftermath. It made the promise real; it rendered threats credible; it furnished them with a concreteness and magnitude that would have been unthinkable prior to it, such that the mere threat of direct action, of mass mobilisations of Govanhill’s residents and those of the surrounding areas on the streets, was enough to force their hand. Conclusion The sheer scale of resistance at Kenmure Street provided resources of hope for anti-​racists locally, raising the collective consciousness and confidence of a generation of activists, old and new. It confronted institutions with power of a different order and efficacy, demonstrating the strength and breadth of community support to those whose oppressive actions (and inactions) may summon it again. In a spectacular moment of metonymic anti-​racism, where places are imbued with new sets of meanings, “Kenmure Street” became legendary overnight, transformed into a site of resistance. In this respect, when held up to

“It’s not like it just happened that day”  83 the light and examined at close range, we may “discover,” “in the analysis of the small individual moment the crystal of the total event” (Benjamin, 1999 [1927–​1940/​1982], [N2, 6], p. 461). Yet far from merely spontaneous, these seemingly singular moments cannot be divorced from their decades-​long making. As Toni Bruce of Romano Lav reflected2: Something had been sparked by Kenmure Street. But it’s not like it just “happened” that day! It’s the effort of decades worth of small community groups working on this stuff, and it all came together … at Kenmure Street, and at the housing association. Solidarity between communities … empowerment … young people driving change. It shows the importance of what we’ve been building towards for years. The consciousness of that marks the city and gives us hope. However, as Bloch reminds us “hope may be altogether decisive, yet the outcome itself still has to be determined, in open history as the field of objectively real decision. […] Consequently, optimism is justified only as militant, never as confirmed” (Bloch, 2018 [1959/​1971], p. 40). The UK Nationality and Borders Act received royal assent in April 2022. The racist violence enshrined in this latest piece of legislation has generated much condemnation from campaigning and advocacy groups, migrants’ rights organisations and politicians. As our case studies have shown, this condemnation has found expression in the local. It has also been used as an opportunity by activists and campaigners to maintain a steady spotlight on the terrible everyday conditions and practices of neglect facing people when they do find themselves in the UK and subjected to the asylum regime, one that, with its tiered levels of “support” and removal of wrap-​around services, is designed to dehumanise and debase racialised minorities and people seeking refuge. By connecting the different threads of violence people are subjected to, we can witness ways in which transversal alliances find forms of expression in the present as a response to the “moment,” but which are also embedded in long-​standing struggles. Moreover, these alliances, this activism whilst located in the everyday can be significantly transformative. But nothing can be taken for granted; we must be nourished, but never sated by these moments of victory. We must sustain our interconnected struggles and movements as these moments have sustained us all. What next? Notes 1 Sheriff officers are officers of the court in Scotland. They are employed by private firms of sheriff officers or are self-​employed. They do the same job as bailiffs in England and Wales but have far fewer powers than bailiffs (Citizens Advice Bureau Sheriff officers –​Citizens Advice Scotland). 2 In a semi-​structured interview carried out by Ashli on 4 January 2022 for the purposes of writing this piece.

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7 The small metal music store as a site of everyday decolonial resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean Nelson Varas-​Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Introduction The effects of XV century colonialism can still be seen and felt today throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These seemingly ever-​present consequences, which regional decolonial theory has termed “coloniality” in light of Anibal Quijano’s work (Quijano, 2009, 2020), are manifested in the continued extermination of indigenous populations, regional and foreign ecological extractivism (Lyons, 2015; van Teijlingen & Hogenboom, 2016), external political interventionism, racism (Cadena, 1998), sexism (Segato, 2010, 2018), and the perpetuation of neoliberal capitalists practices (Mignolo, 2011). The colonial experience, which devalued local people (i.e., coloniality of being) (Maldonado-​Torres, 2007), their experiences, knowledges (i.e., coloniality of knowledge) (Lander, 2000), and histories, is very much alive and continues to hinder the development of many populations throughout the region. It is, therefore, crucial to explore ways in which strategies to push back against the effects of coloniality, known as decolonial efforts (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), become present in the lives of those affected to challenge and navigate the consequences of coloniality. The overall theme of this book, which focuses on everyday acts of resistance, opens the door for explorations of how decolonial efforts might happen in the least expected places, far from traditional political efforts. Therefore, we aim to continue a growing reflection on how metal music in Latin America and the Caribbean can contribute to a decolonial agenda (Varas-​Díaz, 2021; Varas-​Díaz & Morales, 2018). Specifically, we aim to explore how small metal music stores in the region have contributed to this decolonial process. Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America and the Caribbean We have argued extensively that metal music in Latin America and the Caribbean has engaged in a decolonial agenda by examining the effects of XV century colonialism in the region (Rivera-​Segarra, Ramos, & Varas-​Díaz, 2020; Varas-​ Díaz, Nevárez Araújo, & Rivera-​ Segarra, 2021b). Although almost systematically excluded from descriptions of decolonial strategies in DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-7

88  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo the existing academic literature, we have posited that metal music confronts coloniality through what we have coined as extreme decolonial dialogues (Varas-​Díaz, 2021; Varas-​Díaz, Nevárez Araújo, & Rivera-​Segarra, 2021a). These are invitations made through metal music to engage in critical reflections about oppressive practices faced by Latin American communities in light of coloniality; reflections intended to foster deep thought and creative ways to bring about change. We label these experiences dialogues to highlight the exchange of information pertaining to the effects of coloniality between equals, as proposed by Paulo Freire (Freire, 2000). They are decolonial precisely because metal bands engage in dialogues concerned with the historical process of oppression faced by the region, stemming from XV century colonialism and its lingering effects into the present day. Finally, these dialogues are extreme not only because they are perceived as threatening by those unfamiliar with metal aesthetics and sounds but because they address issues related to death, violence, and oppression, which tend to worry unfamiliar listeners in the region. This includes politicians, the media, and other authority figures who have laboured for decades to spread misinformation, promote moral panics, and sow fear in the communities they are meant to protect. These dialogues address issues of extremity (e.g., colonial violence, murder, political repression) that many in the region would rather soon forget (González Hernández, 2021). These extreme decolonial dialogues are manifested via polymorphic strategies, which include, but are not limited to, the use of musical sounds, lyrics, and artwork to critically examine coloniality through metal music (dos Santos Silva & Medeiros, 2021; González Hernández, 2021; Varas-​Díaz & Mendoza, 2018; Wallach, 2020). We see these extreme decolonial dialogues carried out through metal music as extensions of other strategies which have used the arts to challenge coloniality. These include literature (Wa Thiong’o, 1986), film (Solanas & Getino, 1997), theatre (Boal, 1985), and other visual arts (Palermo, 2014). Although these other instances of decolonial resistance might be unaware of metal music’s role in the decolonial process, their effect on metal music fans, musicians, and the body politics, which these inhabit, become undeniable upon closer examination. They make themselves visible in many geographies and spaces linked to metal music consumption. In this short chapter, we will focus on one such space, the small metal music store, and explore the myriad ways in which these locations actively foster extreme decolonial dialogues. The Small Metal Store in Latin America Research on music stores has explored how these sites can be key actors in building community, fostering entrepreneurial activity in marginalised settings, and contributing to the overall cultural life of their locations (Davis, 2011; Calkins, 2019). These findings have found their way into the study of metal music. For example, Jeremy Wallach and Mark LeVine have called for the examination of metal stores as integral components in the formation of

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  89 extreme music scenes (Wallach & Levine, 2012). It is in these sites that metal music is shared, merchandise consumed, and communities built. This premise holds true throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, where small metal music stores have been present for decades and remain beacons around which scenes, fans, and communities coalesce. These stores are deeply influenced by the economic challenges of the region, in many ways serving as microcosmic snapshots of the conditions that define the economy as a whole. They are small in size, usually in close proximity to each other in order to share clientele, yet somewhat scattered across the urban landscapes in the capital cities. Some salient examples include the stores in Galería Brasil in Perú (Lima), those in Galeria do Rock in Brasil (São Paolo), and the pop-​up stores in the El Chopo Marketplace in Ciudad México (México), just to name a few. Although these are examples of more organised spaces where metal stores are present, the majority are actually scattered in smaller markets throughout various cities, thus requiring specialised knowledge of each particular metal scene in order to find these shops. Throughout our ethnographic work in Latin America and the Caribbean, we have seen and spent extended amounts of time in these small metal stores. There we have engaged in formal and informal conversations with owners and customers to reflect on their role in the local metal scenes, which we argue surpasses the mere consumption of extreme music. In order to examine the role of these stores beyond mere sites of consumption and entertainment, we will focus on one specific metal store on the Archipelago of Puerto Rico as a case study and discuss how the events that have taken place in it have served as everyday acts of resistance, that is, as extreme decolonial dialogues. More than Just a Small Metal Music Store Eric Morales was selling albums and t-​shirts out of his home when he first mentioned the idea of opening a small metal music store. In Eric’s small apartment, local metal fans would meet to get their music and metal-​related apparel. Although content with this arrangement, he wanted to open a store modelled on those he had seen in his travels as a musician throughout Latin America. These were inexistent in Puerto Rico at the time. “I just need a small space for it, and I know it will take off,” he stated with enthusiasm in one of our conversations. With a $400 loan from a friend, he began to purchase merchandise from South America, where low prices would allow him to stock his store. In August 2014, Odin’s Court opened its doors for the first time. The store is a small space (20 x 8 feet approximately) located at the Plaza del Mercado (the local name given to the local market) in the town of Caguas (See ). It is surrounded by other small stores selling goods and services such as books, Christian artifacts, prepared foods, liquor, vegetables, fruits, psychology visits and treatments, and even a botánica. Eric’s store stands out like a sore thumb in this curious amalgam with its metal music blasting at all times of the day. He was initially met with great resistance from other vendors, but thanks

90  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo to his buoyant personality and in light of the business he was bringing to the Plaza, those concerns seemed to wane over time. One year after opening the store, Eric received an award from the Mayor’s office for his business practices. He was making a living from his small metal store, and local vendors had taken note of it. From its inception, local metal fans expressed gratitude for the store as it provided a unique space where they could purchase albums and t-​shirts. As if that were not enough, Eric would provide them with musical recommendations and get them imported products that were otherwise inaccessible to many customers1 who did not have the privilege of having the credit cards sorely needed in order to make online purchases. He also became one of the most important ambassadors of metal music in Puerto Rico (and arguably in Latin America), holding frequent concerts at the plaza, which granted younger metal bands the opportunity to interact with and learn from more established acts. His yearly Vianda Fest, a festival humorously named after one of the root vegetables sold at the plaza, would become an important space for the metal community to meet, interact, and grow. In short, the store has become a vitally important space for the local metal scene, and Eric was, until his recent passing, its epicentre. To say that his death represented a seismic shift in the local scene would be a crass understatement.

Figure 7.1 Eric Morales shop in Caguas.

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  91 We had the opportunity to spend time with Eric at the store and frequently witnessed his exchanges with metal fans. By the second year of operations, we saw a change in the store’s role within the local metal scene. People would certainly still go there to purchase music, but their visits would eventually grow into longer and longer visits devoted to profound conversations between peers. These interactions were always interlaced with reflections on metal music, but they also gave Eric and local metal fans room to engage in discussion on other topics. One metal fan described his interactions with Eric while visiting the store as a knowledge-​building process. Eric was, after all, an educated individual who had obtained a Master’s degree in History from the University of Puerto Rico. The fan mentioned the following to us: Eric and I would speak about politics, history, philosophy, world cuisine, animals, and how to make a difference in our country. Beyond music, the store was a refuge for peace, love, and learning. (…) In the store, I learned that one has to work for what one believes in, without thinking about what others will say. (Customer #1) In our conversations, other metal fans who frequented the store mentioned how the discussions would frequently turn to the topic of politics. Specifically, these discussions took on the form of dialogues centred on the unscrupulous political leaders in Puerto Rico and the detrimental policies being implemented at one time or another by the different administrations. Another metal fan stated: There, we spoke about politics. How people elect leaders via fanaticism or lack of information about the situations we face. The fact that people don’t question the root causes of the problems, while the masses applaud these policies. (Customer #2) Although one might think that discussions about politics in a small metal store could be detrimental to sales or even impede everyday social interaction amongst those with different opinions, metal fans interviewed seemed to feel differently. The conversations that took place there appeared to foster a respect for diversity of opinions and encompassed tolerance for different musical tastes and political positions. One customer explained to us the following: There, I didn’t only learn about music. (…) Eric was respectful and open to dialogue. I learned that regardless of who we are, we are part of a society. We have different tastes but must coexist. Although people might have different opinions, one must listen and opine with respect. I opened up to other ways of seeing things. (Customer #3)

92  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo Through its development, the store became something different for the local metal scene. Its role as a commercial space for music consumption had been quickly surpassed, thus becoming an oasis for dialogue among the local scene members. Those conversations did not seem to focus on everyday banalities but were rather consciousness-​raising endeavours fostered by Eric and enjoyed by the scene’s members. One customer described this process as follows: We spoke about classical music, philosophy, and history. Everything from Ricardo Alegría2 to Julio Cortazar.3 We didn’t always agree on our positions, but that was part of how knowledge exchange enriches you. This is more than a store. It is a place for fraternization and fostering the social consciousness of this community. (Customer #4) Eric’s lived experiences as a musician who had travelled throughout Latin America, along with his aforementioned education, seemed to suit him well when interacting in important conversations with customers. In that sense, he was equal parts educator, promoter, colleague, and friend. The store’s role in fostering social awareness of local problems and communal consciousness amongst the local metal scene would come to fruition during the Verano del 19. That summer, Puerto Rican metal took to the streets in protest. Metal Activism and the Verano del 19 The Summer of 2019 continues to reverberate as a seminal moment in Puerto Rico’s history. Whenever a local person refers to the “Verano del 19,” little else needs to be said as everyone in the conversation is keenly aware of the events. For anyone else unfamiliar with the events, some background is needed. At the onset of the month of July 2019, social media chatter brought to light the existence of a private chat forum between then-​governor Pedro Rosselló and several of his cabinet members (Vega, 2020). The chat included conversations about policy issues intermingled with homophobic, misogynistic, ageist, ableist, body shaming, and classist comments. Probably most hurtful of all, the conversation made fun of those who had died during and following the immediate aftermath of Hurricane María in 2017. It is estimated that the natural disaster left 4,645 deaths in its path (Kishore et al., 2018). One member of the chat suggested that the bodies of the dead should be used to “feed our crows” in reference to the political party’s opposition. Those involved in the chat represented the most recent actors in power under the Partido Nuevo Progresista (New Progressive Party), a party widely known for its support of Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with the US, its implementation of neoliberal policies, its promotion of the criminalisation of dissent, and its disdain for minority groups. They represented the most recent batch of colonial politicians in Puerto Rico, a horde aptly labelled the Criollo Bloc by Joaquín Villanueva and Martín Cobián (Villanueva & Cobián, 2019).

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  93 The chat helped erupt the latent disdain harboured amongst local people who were facing economic hardship and had recently felt disrespected by the US-​led response to Hurricane María. The people took to the streets in reaction to the chat’s content. The protests, which included everything from artistic expressions to reactionary violence, forced the governor to resign. During those two weeks, something historically important happened. It would be the first time in the history of the Archipelago where collective actions by the people would force a governor to resign. The images of the massive protests were shared by international media outlets (BBC-​NEWS, 2019). Much has been written in the local and international press about the events of the Verano del 19. Academic scholars have also paid attention to the manner in which the protests took place (Atiles Osoria, 2020; LeBrón, 2021; Bonilla & LeBrón, 2019). For example, the protests were marked by the presence of public figures from the world of music like Ricky Martin, René Pérez Joglar, aka Calle 13, and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny. Anti-​ colonial feminist collectives like La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción (colloquially known as La Cole) were crucial to the coordination and effectiveness of the protests (Santiago Ortiz, 2020). Even more importantly, scholars have shed light on the multifaceted forms of protest that grew out of the Verano del 19, including the perreo combativo, a sexually charged dancing style associated with reggaeton music, which, when linked to political resistance and seen in the context of Puerto Rico’s history of religious conservatism, was interpreted as combative in nature (Zambrana, 2021). In these examinations of the varied forms of resistance present during the Verano del 19, the role of the local metal scene has been ignored by many journalistic and academic perusals. We feel a need to correct this absence and highlight the role Eric’s store played as an important space that fostered resistance on the part of metal fans, artists, and consumers. Eric’s small metal store became an epicentre during those two weeks. Metal fans and musicians would meet there to discuss what was happening with regards to the governor’s chat and the looming protests. The conversations ran deep. People who had lost loved ones during the hurricane seemed to be most eager to join the protest movement that was rapidly emerging and organising. The store became a hub for political discussion. More importantly, these conversations had an urgency to them that the store had rarely witnessed before. Something needed to be done. Metal fans and musicians had to join the events happening around them. These were historic, impacting each individual in one way or another, thus meriting some kind of action. “Something needs to be done here, and maybe the store is the place to do it,” Eric mentioned during one of our many phone conversations on the topic. People who gravitated towards the store seemed to agree with Eric. Something needed to be done. It was evident that most there were gearing up to be part of the protests that would come to pass in the upcoming days. Conversations in the store continued to take place, and those present quickly realised that instead of joining the protests as individuals, they should do it as a collective. Metal music was the thread that brought them together, and Eric’s

94  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo store was their site for discussion and planning. For the younger generation, it served as a primer in civics and politics. For those more politically educated, it was their agora. It had become a space to voice opinions, dissatisfactions, concerns, and now, strategies for direct action. In preparation for the upcoming protests, those present in the store decided to have Eric contact the local artist and metal musician Kadriel Betsen and ask him to develop a visual campaign to deploy in the upcoming protests. Multiple brainstorming sessions ensued, which produced a social media campaign encouraging the metal community to join their voices to the growing calls for the Governor’s resignation. The main theme of the campaign was Metaleros con el Pueblo (Metalheads with the People). This was accompanied by the hashtag Ricky Renuncia (Ricky, quit!). The campaign’s images were simple yet pointed, a feature allowing them to be easily shared by the metal community via social media. One such image presented a modified Puerto Rican flag that substituted the traditional colours for an all-​black scheme. This particular flag has become a symbol of resistance on the Archipelago during the last decade. However, Kadriel took this design further, substituting the flag’s sole star with a pentagram as a way of linking it to metal aesthetics. Another salient image used in the campaign highlighted the definition of sociopath, calling attention to the governor’s lack of empathy and rampant egocentrism (see ). A third image boldly stated ahora te persiguen todos tus muertos (now all your dead follow you) in a clear reference to those who perished during Hurricane María and who had been made fun of in the chat (see ). Other images included more positive messages about how the people were now united, were ready to hit the streets in a collective roar and would remain defiant until the governor resigned. All of the artwork was discussed, planned, and settled on at Eric’s store before deployment over social media. Physical banners were printed and carried by metal fans and musicians during the ensuing protests. The events that took place in Eric’s store echoed others that took place in Puerto Rico, all of which brought about the governor’s resignation. The case of Eric’s store seems quite significant to us for multiple reasons; these reasons help shed light on how small acts of resistance happen throughout similar venues found in Latin America and the Caribbean. First, metal music became a unifying catalyst that mobilised a sector of local people who may have rarely engaged in social protest. It was their joint interest in metal music, their convergence at this singular store, and their appreciation of the critical messages represented in the genre and embedded in its lyrics that seemed to foster their engagement in the protest movement. We have seen this happen in recent protests in Chile (Taub, 2019) and Colombia (Pardo, 2021), where metal fans have taken to the streets collectively to protest socially oppressive practices linked to coloniality. Second, Eric’s small metal store became a specific site where the discussions linking metal to social resistance against oppression, in this case, materialised in the governor’s chat, took place. The store became an epicentre of critical reflection and subsequent direct action. It highlighted how the small store could foster rapid organisation through support from people

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  95

Figure 7.2 Definition of sociopath highlighted.

who frequently interacted with Eric and the store. Third, and most importantly, the store seemed to foster a “politics beyond politics” type of approach. By this, we mean an opening up to the possibility of political action through metal music that eschewed and distanced itself from participation via traditional political parties or organisations, many of which raise suspicion amongst many metal fans. Taking to the streets as a clearly identified metal community was a thought-​out choice, as one protester explained: I work with a Marxist organization, and it was also present at the protest. But I decided to join the effort alongside metal fans because we decided that we wanted to reflect another dimension of the diversity that exists in Puerto Rico. When we saw other communities join the protest, we decided to do the same. We wanted to make it clear that we, as Puerto Ricans and metalheads, were against the governor and wanted him to resign. It was about making our community visible and simultaneously challenging our own marginalization. We sometimes have to be out on the streets to become visible. We wanted the metal community to be represented in that larger spirit of resistance. (Protester #1)

96  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Figure 7.3 ahora te persiguen todos tus muertos (now all your dead follow you), reference to those who perished during Hurricane María.

Kadriel Betsen, upon reflecting on the developed artwork and his participation in the subsequent protests, stated the following: It felt like something that had to be done. It was my way of helping send a message out. We never discussed payments because it felt unnecessary as an artist. I have no political affiliations. I did this alongside the metal community because it helped make that sector of society visible. It was a way of saying that this has nothing to do with political parties. It had to do with a general sense of indignation that did not respond to a specific political ideal. It had to do with a feeling of indignation at what was unfolding before our eyes. That is why we marched together. Continued Dialogues on Resistance and Coloniality On 24 July 2019, Governor Rosselló held a press conference to announce that he would resign on 2 August. Eric witnessed the event via a small, beat-​up TV he kept in the store to watch the news and Latin American telenovelas whenever foot traffic at the store was scarce. As we frequently did, we met to have

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  97 lunch near his store and talk about life in general, music, and politics. This time the conversation took an unexpected turn as Eric was reflective about his store’s role in mobilising metalheads to participate in a political protest. “I know that the store serves many purposes,” he stated while looking at people in the plaza walk through the stores. “But this feels different. It is almost as if the store was a classroom for a minute.” We concurred with his assessment. The conversations that took place in preparation for the event, the organisational process that linked graphic artists with metal fans, and the logistical process entailed in coordinating participation in the protest all took place in Eric’s store. “I want to find a way to continue these types of reflections here.” One could almost see the next idea brewing in his head. In order to continue fostering a space for political reflections within his store, Eric contacted local artist Jotham Malavé Maldonado. The artist had created a set of sketch paintings that depicted local politicians in different states of putrefaction, with eyes glazed and surrounded by money, excrement, and flies. It seems telling that all of the depicted politicians were at the time members of the conservative and pro-​colonial Partido Nuevo Progresista. The artist explained the rationale for the piece as follows: It is rare that I do work that accurately portrays those who destroy my country. In my work, I develop different themes that include politics in a poetic way. These drawings of beheaded or mutilated politicians emerged as a response in support of the demonstrations against those who exercise the policies of the colonial government on our Island. These drawings gave voice to what many felt before, during, and after the demonstrations of the Verano del 19. Jotham seemed eager to mention in our exchange that although the “drawings were not made with the intention of being exhibited, Eric had the idea of turning them into a shirt.” In light of Eric’s recommendation, he would join all of the individual sketches into one cohesive piece and title it La Isla del Espanto (The Island of Fright), a play on words on the popular local phrase La Isla del Encanto (The Island of Enchantment) (see ). Now used as a promotional tool for Eric’s metal band Dantesco, it became one of the store’s best-​ selling shirts, selling out in a matter of days. The images were even picked up by local pro-​independence newspaper Claridad and included in their monthly publication. In light of this fact, we think it is important to address two specific themes linked to the creation and use of this particular artwork: First, the rationale for focusing on the depiction of these specific politicians, and second, the underlying reasons why Eric would decide to engage in such an outright political statement in his small metal store. Let us examine each individually. The selection of these specific politicians is clearly linked to decolonial reflections taking place in Puerto Rico via music, literature, and the visual arts. Where political parties seem to have lost any sense of agency or power, or

98  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Figure 7.4 La Isla del Espanto (The Island of Fright).

worse yet, any interest, in challenging the colonial practices that take place in Puerto Rico on a daily basis, a plethora of artistic expressions have come to fill that vacuum of challenging the Archipelago’s colonial relation to the US. The depicted politicians incarnated many of the policies linked to the Archipelago’s colonial experience. They had persecuted pro-​independence and anti-​colonial activists, criminalised students who protested against neoliberal austerity measures, engaged in draconian policy efforts to limit the rights of

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  99 the LGBTQ community, opportunistically blurred the separation of Church and State, engaged in corrupt practices that warranted arrests by federal authorities, participated in the privatisation of public roads and the healthcare system, and closed or sold public schools. These situations just added to the incessant discontent most of the population felt as it related to how the local government responded in the aftermath of Hurricane María (Roman, 2018). The governor’s hate-​filled chat was the straw that broke the camel’s back; consequently, it is very telling for us that his visage serves as the supporting base for the inverted cross depicted in the shirt’s artwork. The portrayal of these politicians is not a mere coincidence. Jotham selected these individuals for their complicity in safeguarding the structures of colonialism that prevail in Puerto Rico; in other words, Jotham is actively critiquing the Criollo Bloc. Eric had brought that reflection into his store, looking to cement it in the local metal community’s consciousness; Jotham, just like a few others, manifested it through his artistic work. We are sure that for many local and international metal fans, Eric’s decision to inspire such politically charged artwork in this particular shirt and to sell it at his store could be interpreted as counterproductive, disruptive, or even as going against the spirit of metal. His band could lose followers, and the store could turn away customers. These concerns did not seem to faze Eric, and they certainly did not come up during any of our conversations. After all, Eric had a long history of including decolonial reflections in his music by focusing on XV century indigenous extermination, championing national pride, highlighting local folk legends, and critiquing imperialistic practices under colonial rule (Dantesco, 2013, 2015, 2020). In the past, these lyrical incursions into decolonial reflections had not yielded outright activism or political engagement. That all changed with the Verano del 19. The events of that summer lit the metaphorical powder keg that had been accumulating for centuries. After years of solipsistic musings, the Verano del 19 seemed to change Eric, who now expressed an eagerness to explore how his small metal store could continue fostering critical thinking and action amongst the local metal community. He had begun to see his store not only as a place to hang out and listen to music but as a space that could harbour critical reflection and from where he and his peers could challenge the ongoing effects of coloniality in Puerto Rico. His collaborations with local artists like Jotham helped him transform his musings into praxis. Discussion Eric Morales unexpectedly passed away in 2020. His absence has left a monumental chasm in the metal community at home and abroad. Nonetheless, his small metal music store in Puerto Rico remains open, thanks to the efforts of his widow and co-​owner, Samaris Medina. The store continues to serve as a platform for analyses on issues of resistance towards political oppression, which can be useful to both metal and decolonial studies. It is our intent that the brief case study presented in this chapter not only honours

100  Nelson Varas-Díaz and Daniel Nevárez Araújo his legacy but that it can help us –​as metal music researchers and readers akin to these practices –​begin to navigate the nuances of everyday acts of resistance, particularly as they pertain to decolonial efforts in geographies impacted by coloniality. Consequently, we wish to end this chapter by outlining three points of importance for us in light of the example showcased here, an example that we have seen replicated in other small metal music stores in the region: 1 Witnessing and understanding everyday acts of resistance against oppression demands that researchers, scholars, and activists interested in social change place their attention on non-​traditional spaces of action. The days of meta-​narratives promoting political action through traditional institutions (e.g., political parties) are a relic of the past tainted by an ever-​ growing distrust and lack of enthusiasm for such options. This entails that other less traditional spaces need to be looked at as potential venues and sources of critical thought and action. In the case presented here, a small metal music store served as an epicentre for social mobilisation and protest against a local colonial government. The store became a site for communal learning about music and politics. It is here, in the least expected places, where extreme decolonial dialogues take place, and the seed for everyday acts of resistance germinates. 2 Decolonial actions throughout Latin America have been preoccupied with issues of memory and resistance (Cepeda, 2013; Crenzel, 2011). Latin America and the Caribbean have been plagued with colonial violence, which is then accompanied by governmental efforts to have people forget these acts ever took place. State-​sanctioned murders, political persecution, communal displacement, and ecocide through neoliberal capitalism are but a few of the problems coloniality fosters. It seems important to us that Eric, the aforementioned collaborating artists, and the participating protesters were clear about the decolonial dimensions of their work. They stand, along with others who use the arts as a form of activism against forgetfulness (Aladro-​Vico, Jivkova-​Semova, & Bailey, 2018), as living reminders of what has been done to them. They remind us that the colonial wounds are real and remain present (Mignolo, 2011; Mignolo & Vázquez, 2013), an idea that has been championed by other metal artists in Latin America (Arraigo, 2017). 3 Finally, scholars engaged in metal music studies would benefit from exploring the political dimensions of small metal stores throughout the Global South. More than mere sites for scenic development, these might be serving as spaces promoting social awareness, communal engagement, and a reinterpretation of how music scenes and metal proper engage in politics. There is much to be learned from these small stores, their owners, and their customers, as these could be sites of everyday resistance which have gone unnoticed in previous research.

The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  101 Notes 1 This included getting in contact and establishing relationships with musicians and fans throughout the world, particularly in Latin America, as a way to promote otherwise unknown bands in Puerto Rico. For example, many Puerto Rican metal fans became acquainted with a band like Cuba’s Tendencia, thanks to Eric’s efforts. Thus, he also served as an unofficial promoter of many bands outside of the Puerto Rican metal scene. 2 Ricardo Alegría was a widely respected Puerto Rican scholar mostly known for being an outstanding researcher and for being the first director of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. 3 Julio Cortázar was a famous Argentine-​French novelist and an important figure of the Latin American Boom which exposed the world to the region’s literature during the 1960s and 1970s.

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The small metal music store as a site of decolonial resistance  103 Segato, R.L. (2010). Género y colonialidad. In Quijano, A. & Mejía J. (Eds.), La Cuestión Decolonial. Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma. Segato, R. (2018). La Crítica de la Colonialidad en Ocho Ensayos: Y una Antropología por Demanda. Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros. Solanas, F., & Getino, O. (1997). Towards a Third Cinema: Notes and experiences for the development of a cinema of liberation in the Third World. In Martin, M.T. (Ed.), New Latin American cinema (pp. 33–​58). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Taub, A. (2019, November 4). “Chile Despertó”: El Legado de Desigualdad Desata Protestas Masivas. The New York Times. van Teijlingen, K., & Hogenboom, B. (2016). Debating alternative development at the mining frontier: Buen Vivir and the conflict around El Mirador Mine in Ecuador. Journal of Developing Societies 32(4): 382–​420. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​01697​96X1​ 6667​190 Varas-​Díaz, N. (2021). Decolonial metal music in Latin America. London: Intellect. Varas-​Díaz, N., & Mendoza, S. (2018). Morbo ancestral: Reformulando la cultural local a través de la música metal en Puerto Rico. Metal Music Studies 4(1): 165–​174. https://​doi.org/​10.1386/​mms.4.1.165 Varas-​ Díaz, N., & Morales, E. (2018). Decolonial reflections in Latin American metal: Religion, politics and resistance. Theologiques 26(1): 229–​250. Varas-​Díaz, N., Nevárez Araújo, D., & Rivera-​Segarra, E. (2021a). Conceptualizing the distorted South: How to understand metal music and its scholarship in Latin America. In Varas-​ Díaz, N., Nevárez Araújo, D., & Rivera-​ Segarra, E. (Eds.), Heavy metal music in Latin America: Perspectives from the distorted South (pp. 7–​36). London: Lexington Books. Varas-​Díaz, N., Nevárez Araújo, D., & Rivera-​Segarra, E. (2021b). Heavy metal music in Latin America: Perspectives from the distorted South. New York: Lexington Books. Vega, M. (2020, July 28). Verano del 19: The 15 days that ended Rosselló’s Government. The Americano. Villanueva, J., & Cobián, M. (2019). Intervention –​“Beyond disaster capitalism: Dismantling the infrastructure of extraction in Puerto Rico’s neo-​plantation economy.” Antipode Foundation. https://​ant​ipod​efou​ndat​ion.org/​2019/​06/​25/​bey​ond-​ disas​ter-​cap​ital​ism/​ Accessed 30 January 2022. Wallach, J. (2020). Global rock as postcolonial soundtrack. In Moore, A. & Carr, P. (Eds.), Bloomsbury handbook for rock music research (pp. 469–​485). New York: Bloomsbury. Wallach, J., & Levine, A. (2012). “I want you to support local metal”: A theory of metal scene formation. Popular Music History 6(1):116–​134. https://​doi.org/​10.1558/​pomh. v6i1/​2.116 Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. Westlands: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. Zambrana, R. (2021). Colonial debts: The case of Puerto Rico. Durham: Duke University Press.

8 Manifestation of protests in Instagram Images as a potential site of resistance in the 2019 Delhi protests Senthivel Arulselvan Introduction Universally, modern political societies have been witnessing the deluge of protests and articulation of resistance to the dominant power structures and controlling dogmas of their political powers. Dissent, resistance, and protest engagements, crucial missions of social equality, have become a part of everyday politics. Democracy is the representative body of the government in the form of the supremacy of the powerless, a breach of justice and control, and the absurd power of individual citizens who do not count (Rancière & Panagia, 2000). Citing wide literature, Wolfsfeld et al. (2013) argue that the basis of political instability leads to protests, due to the gap between the public sought-​after level of democratic principles and the country’s existent level of democracy; the longer the gap, the deeper the probable for uncertainty. Nevertheless, Judith Butler (2015) argues that politics is not made exclusively by the protestors’ expressed anxieties, but by the protesting citizens’ political action, as a result, the aesthetics of the political action assert how consensus is established over the interaction of actions, imageries, and technologies tied up in such makings. This chapter aims to comprehend and analyse the manifestation of anti-​CAA protests in Instagram images posted by seven activists and artists1 with eight popular hashtags,2 in the light of Marichal’s (2013) idea of micro-​activism, Butler’s (2015) theory of performativity, and Bennett & Segerberg’s (2012) concept of personalised politics. It further attempts to understand the expressions shared by artists in conveying the sense of dissent, and in making known Instagram images as a site of protest. The context of the 2019 Delhi protests The Constitution of India assured citizenship to all residents of India at its commencement and made no dissimilarity on a religious basis. The Government of India passed the Citizenship Act in 1955, bestowing citizenship to all India born, bound by a few restrictions.3 The Citizenship Act was amended initially in 1985 once the Assam Accord4 was get into, giving citizenship to all Bangladeshi migrants who reached India before 1971 subject to a few riders. DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-8

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  105 The Act was amended from time to time, including the one made in 1992, 2003, 2005, and 2015. In 2003, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which incidentally rules the Union of India ever since 2014 till date, after winning two successive general elections to the parliament of India, inserted the idea of illegal immigrants into the amendment Act. This amendment proscribed illegal immigrants seeking citizenship, furthermore pronouncing their children as illegal immigrants. It also sanctioned the Government of India to produce and uphold an NRC (National Register of Citizens).5 After a decade, when the BJP resumed power,6 the government tabled the CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill) in the Lok Sabha7 on 18 July 2016. Given its broader implications, the bill was sent to a JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) in August 2016. After a detailed discussion for nearly three years, the JPC submitted its report in the early month of 2019. The revised CAB8 was tabled all over again in the Lok Sabha9 on 9 December 2019, and the Lok Sabha passed the brushed-​up CAB instantly. Subsequently, the CAB was also passed in the Rajya Sabha, on 11 December 2019. Martelli and Garalytė (2019) point out that the passage of the Act was followed by an array of political decisions contrary to Muslims’ interest in India: Proscription of Muslim men from performing Triple Talaq,10 obliteration of the special standing of the State of Jammu and Kashmir,11 and the passing on the site for the erection of a temple12 in preference to a mosque cracked by protestors in 1992. The President of India signed up the revised amendment bill on 14 December 2019, as a result, the Citizenship Amendment Act came into effect on 10 January 2020. Protests blossomed instantly in India against the enactment of the CAA (2019). Delhi was the epicentre of the protests, soon after a police force launched into fierce violence against students at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) (Shivaprasad, 2021). Across India, some were protesting as the CAA infringe upon the reverent character of the country while others panicked that it will put in danger their linguistic and ethnic distinctiveness (Aiyar, 2020). In Assam, the people of the State felt that the amendment of the Act is in the desecration of the Assam Accord. The protests spread across the country, and soon, prominent sites for the protests were primarily academic higher education institutions such as Jawaharlal University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Aligarh Muslim University. On 15 December 2019, police reportedly entered Jamia Millia Islamia and caused injury to students. The news published in the popular newspapers reported that many of the protests that arose in many states and districts, of which, many ended with a minimum of one violent instance by police, and the deaths of 31 people were documented. Muslims signified anti-​CAA protests as non-​party political campaigning the liberal principles of the Constitution, expressly the Preamble to the Constitution of India were taken to mean by the protestors to demand the government’s schema. The invocation of national codes is a momentous feature of the anti-​CAA protests, where protestors used them as political signs (Ahmed, 2020). A remarkable location of the protest was Shaheen Bagh which houses many Muslim residents and is located near the Jamia Millia Islamia in

106  Senthivel Arulselvan Delhi. Shaheen Bagh became a site of protest that articulated the performative enactments of resistance to CAA by Muslim women. Soon after the Delhi Police hardened Jamia Millia Islamia university students protesting against CAA on 15 December 2019, Shaheen Bagh joined the protest, expressing its solidarity with the agitating student community (Bhatia & Gajjala, 2020). Neighbourhoods in Delhi became sites of opposition where new avatars of dissent were inscribed, articulated, and performed daily (Shivaprasad, 2021). Dissents in Shaheen Bagh were endured till the Police cleared out the protestors on 24 March 2020 (Gayathri, 2020). Shaheen Bagh has enthused many small-​level Shaheen Baghs in thousands of mohallas and nearly a hundred educational institutional campuses, attended by students across the board, broadening to every state and union territory of India (Aiyar, 2020). The corporeal anti-​CAA protests came to an end in a battle of communal ferocity as Delhi riots towards the end of March 2020, and yet the virtual resistance continues to date, in the form of social media postings, sharing of visuals, imageries commemorating the completion of the first year, and documenting the pain and grief encountered by the protestors, artists, writers, and activists. While the revised Citizenship Amendment Bill was introduced in the Parliament of India in 2019, it was the student community from different Universities that led the protests peacefully across the country. Accordingly, the protest was a festival, a theatrical spectacle of what citizenship destined (Shiv, 2019), begun as protests, developed into a festival of what democracy is and what dissent can be; they are a manifestation of non-​violence in a mighty way, observed designer Anirban Ghosh (Gayeti, 2020). Nevertheless, at the beginning of the protest, when pointers came in, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spelled out the position of the government and tweeted on 16 December 201913: “CAA is not to distress anybody irrespective of their religious faith, and the amendment Act is simply for the one who has coped with a long period of persecution outside and has no habitation to go except for India.” Notwithstanding the assurance of the Prime Minister of the country, the

Figure 8.1 Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi’s tweet dated 16 December 2019, explaining the position of his government on CAA.

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  107 protest blossomed, sustained, spread nationwide, and progressed until the COVID-​19 lockdown ended in the physical space. Citizenship, networked public sphere, and Instagram Citizenship is an integral relationship between a citizen and the state (Clarke et al., 2014), an absolute position granted to the members of a political community and all having equal standing (Marshall, 1950). Citizens are political agents, actively participating in political institutions and furnishing a distinct source of identity (Carens, 2000). To belong to a political community, there should be a right for everyone as a precondition for the protection of other rights (Arendt, 2007). Nevertheless, the limits of finding a right to have rights lie in four places (Kesby, 2012): the right to nationality; citizenship; humanity; and the right to a politics of rights. A vital link connecting inhabitants, advocates, and other performers is social media, which has redefined the expression of collective, decentralised, and individualised forms of political actions and provoked all to rethink how political activism is manifested and performed (Ahmed, 2020; Kavada, 2016; Marichal, 2013). It offers a “digitally networked protest space” (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012), where people and groups “perform socio-​political identities” (Zuev & Bratchford, 2021) towards intensely shaping their political participation. The structure of online social networks has effects on information acquaintance and the outcome of protest engagements, as the communication scene gets compressed and becomes more participatory (Shirky, 2011). Social media platforms and the digitally networked public sphere facilitate protests, through the use of hashtags (Pearl, 2018). Protestors prompt solidarity through commons such as platforms, and they contest the legality of economic and political edifices (Clarke et al., 2014). For instance, the 1999 Seattle protests, one of the initial expressions of networked movement globally, through the adaptation of cyberspace (Tufekci, 2017), illustrate the way protestors magnify the range of new media technologies that are capable of expressing political opinion and team spirit. Present protests combine online communication with the deployment of existence in a bodily space and the two domains of influence are by nature entwined (McGarry, Jenzen, et al., 2019). In an earlier study, Jost et al. (2018) found essential information to the management of protest undertakings, for instance, news about conveyance, gathering, police being there, ferocity, health amenities, and lawful upkeep spread fast and professionally over social media networks. Personalised action: Social media posts are mass self-​ communication (Castells, 2007) that enable individuals to connect with each person worldwide, with the help of self-​generated messages online and political engagement has become a gradual measure of a person’s self-​realisation mission (Svensson, 2011). Bennett and Segerberg (2012) define “personalized politics” as the manifestation of individual faiths, way of life, and objections through which the public practise their narratives, involvements, and apprehensions to initiate

108  Senthivel Arulselvan the progression of collective action. The rise of social media is responsible for, until now, difficult prospects for politicians and political gatherings to discretely lead into, and interrelate with, affiliates of the community (Kruikemeier et al., 2013). Micro-​activism: It makes evident that middle-​level performances of political participation online do not move with the objectives of persistent activism, but necessitate political engagement profoundly and insightfully. Marichal (2013) defines micro-​activism as modest practices of political action that arise from everyday internet handlers’ actions. Departing from the slacktivist14 method to digital antagonism, micro-​activism progresses the conventional description of protest to put up practices of electronic argumentative actions emergent by way of the lifestyle-​based method to politics. Although these behaviours may not find a determination to effect social consequences, Marichal (2013) further contends that academics should not challenge their political resolve by distorting them as submissive political performances accompanied by a slacktivist bent. Instances consist of the establishment of political groups on social media, retweeting of articles of political concern and sharing politically appropriate videos on social media platforms. Having said that it needs to understand that micro-​activism varies from other forms of activism in its measure and resolve, as well. Imagining with Instagram Photography is becoming less about getting hold of memories than about pointing out present actions as they are happening (Favero, 2020). Different components of photo culture, which were distinct all through the 19th and 20th centuries, have now been shared on a simple platform, through a hand-​ held device that allows everybody to capture, and publish photos, discover other photos through search, take up discussions with those who create the images and others who left remarks, create photo assemblages, modify their order, etc. (Manovich, 2017). As of January 2022, India stands first in the world, in terms of having its user base with 230.25 million users, followed by the US with 159.75 million users, and Brazil with 119.45 million, while Indonesia, Russia, and Turkey ranked in fourth, fifth, and sixth positions, respectively.15 Instagram offers to understand self-​staging and manifestation, online publics, and commonplace lives as facilitated over images (Ibrahim, 2015; Jang et al., 2015). Co-​founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom elucidated the distinctive characteristic of Instagram as “seeing and taking photos on the go.” Further, as dissents anger across universities in India counters CAA, students embraced social media to organise protests online and educate the common man on how to consolidate protests. Instagram is widely held by some as it enables sharing of images and videos, and its settings let defence against the online provocation that users might undergo on similar platforms. Privacy settings on Instagram provide an escape from online pestering on platforms,

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  109 says Torsha Sarkar, an activist at the Centre for Internet and Society, reports the First Post.16 Image as a site of resistance: Art has possession of an amazing capability to prompt opposition and insurgence, protest and optimism in a blossoming democracy. Images generate more resilient emotive responses than inscribed vocal facts. Citing wide-​ranging literature, Casas and Williams (2019) argue that distinct emotional reactions are essential to realising social armament and political engagement. While open to fresh information, emotions stimulate information-​pursuing and participation in political progressions. Rose (2014) contends that graphical imaginings are a bit of social distinctiveness, progressions, performances, familiarities, bodies, and associations, they make visible, the social and political realm shaped and transferred. Visual images are “a bit of social distinctiveness, practises, experiences, establishments and relationships: this is what they make visible” (Rose, 2014, p. 37). With this understanding of protests, citizenship, social media, and images, four conceptions have arisen and found a framework for analysing the results of the study: the performativity of protests, micro-​ activism, personalised action, and image as a site of protests. This study draws upon the concepts of the performativity of protests, personalised action, micro-​activism, and image as a site of protest as its theoretical framework to analyse the anti-​CAA protests and the images generated through the networked public sphere such as Instagram. Supriya Roychoudhury, an activist, wrote in the Scroll.in, the potential of protest art and its usage in the anti-​CAA protest in India: On December 15, the Delhi Police confronted with Jamia Millia Islamia students dissenting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Within minutes, video footage of this spread from corner to corner on the internet. Subsequently, Tamil actor and painter Poovannan produced an image of the incident, that became an iconic image of the protest. This is an example of the protest art that is being produced across the globe. These protests would be inconceivable without the poetry, music, craft, creative slogans, street theatre, murals and sartorial displays that have shored up them. (Roychoudhury, 2020) Performativity of protests: Performativity is the competency of language as a mode of action and not just as a way of description, which ran counter to the positivist sight of speech as principally encompassing expressions that were either true or false (Austin, 1962). In other words, “the performativity turn manifests a shift of the point of focus from contemplation, reflection on the world and a person and the approval of this world towards a rebellion which is against the existing reality and causes its change,” argues Domanska (2007, p. 52). The theory of performativity helps to explain how socially excluded individuals and groups can challenge disciplinary and state power through the processes of the public sphere. Butler’s notion of performativity considers

110  Senthivel Arulselvan how people can resist through actions in the public sphere (Butler, 2015). Performativity of resistance through the public sphere allows for the creation of identity and discourse that resists the old and creates new power relations. As in many other parts of the world, the growing use of the internet and social networks has introduced significant changes in the development of political communications and social movements. It has provided immediate communication amongst young, educated, and networked activists, a channel to spread information, build cooperation, and create a collective identity (Cadena-​Roa et al., 2021). Politically and artistically performativity, an empowering notion that spells out how social norms are founded, displays that transformation and creation are possible (Kember & Zylinska, 2010). Whereas, Butler (2015) contends that bodies in public space are engaging multiple and performative rights to perform, and establish the body amongst the politically aware arena, and provides a directive for a domain of commercial, societal, and politically aware state of affairs no longer troubled by prompted practices of precarity. Cyberspace and networks have added a new facet to performativity: Performances are available to be distributed and copied. Therefore, protests have emerged as a shared political accomplishment that demands the evolving and authoritative magnitudes of governing political ideas (Butler, 2015). Method In the course of the anti-​ CAA protests, many individuals, groups, and movements, through the creation and propagation of images, videos, and writing, the daily life cycle of the protest was documented, shared, and made visible on social media. It is imperative to understand how the protest manifested in physical and digital spaces from end to end, tie together several technologies and media focusing on content developed by citizens, in the form of photos, drawings, graphics, demands, promotions, and other digital artifacts shared and propagated through Instagram, to unearth hidden exemplifications, stories, concepts, performers, demands, and codes that significantly contributed to making different sorts of social and political imaginaries of solidarities. Drawing on the context of the 2019 Delhi protests and the above literature, this study foregrounds the following research questions:

• How do Instagram images manifest the dynamism of anti-​CAA protests held in Delhi and other cities in India?

• How did communication and performativity constitute anti-​CAA protest movements?

• Did the personalised posting of protest images on Instagram contribute to putting in order the anti-​CAA movement?

• What is the role of Instagram images to set off micro-​activism in the anti-​ CAA protest movement?

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  111 Images/​artworks chosen for the study

Eight images/​artworks, based on their popularity and relevance, published by six artist-​activists published on Instagram between December 2019 and December 2021, as given in Table 8.1, were carefully chosen, and analysed in light of the conceptual framework constructed for the study. With content analysis of select posts on Instagram, the study thematically categorised

Table 8.1 List of selected Instagram images chosen for the study and the handle of the artists/​activists who have contributed to the anti-​CAA protests Sl. No.

Activist/​artist

Instagram handle of the activist/​artist

URLs of the images chosen for the study*

1

Zubair Ahmed Khan: President, Jamia Students Forum, Jamila Millia Islamia, New Delhi Ita Mehrotra: Director, Artreach India, and a visiting faculty of Ashoka University

www.instagram. com/​jsf_​jamia/​

Sangeetha Alwar: A self-​taught artist and illustrator, and a Professor of English, based at Bangaluru Kruttika Susarla: Comic maker, illustrator, and graphics designer from Andhra Pradesh Sajeev Sethumadhavan A.: Design engineer by profession, based at Palakkad, Kerala Pearl D’Souza: Illustrator and visual artist, Goa

www.instagram. com/​ms.alwar/​ ?hl=​en

www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CQSg​ DEiH​3mS/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink www.instagram.com/​p/​ CUhjarSg-​pM/​?utm_​ medium=​copy_​link www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CRJP​ xU7p​lPB/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​ we​b_​co​py_​l​ink www.instagram.com/​p/​ CSloN-​9pT6P/​?utm_​ source=​ig_​web_​copy_​link www.instagram.com/​p/​ B6Kp3G6hD_​v/​?utm_​ source=​ig_​web_​copy_​link

www.instagram. com/​kruttika/​ ?hl=​en

https://​creativesagainstcaa. kadakcollective.com/​ posters/​

www.instagram. com/​adampz_​ sketches/​

www.instagram.com/​p/​ CHouuFMBmL_​/​?utm_​ medium=​copy_​link

www.instagram. com/​pearl. dsouza/​

www.instagram.com/​p/​ B6N0CK7pSY4/​?utm_​ source=​ig_​web_​copy_​link

2

3

4

5

6

*As on 16 February 2022.

www.instagram. com/​ita_​ mehrotra/​

112  Senthivel Arulselvan the representations of protests constructed through visuals, identifying the manifestations of the protest through the given images. Analysis The images/​artworks shared on Instagram were analysed on the following themes, based on the theoretical framework constructed for the study: Artists’ solidarity, Protest as performativity, Manifestation of individual faith, Micro level communicative political acts, and Protest images contribute to the public sphere. Artists’ Solidarity: When a commoner is oppressed, art comes into the centre of his/​her life in great ways in solidarity with each other, said Orijit Sen, a graphic novelist, who produces cartoons and posters, dissenting against the act of oppression (Pratika, 2020). Artists and activists have contributed their resources, creations, and ideas for the wider usage of activists, movements, and collectives to perform the struggle and to counter misinformation. Kadak, a women’s collective of South Asian graphic storytellers has a repository of more than 100 posters on its site, drawn by more than 75 women artists, explaining various aspects of the anti-​CAA protests, and offered all its resources free for use by the protestors. Individually many activists have contributed to the cause of the protest, which includes the works of Rachita Taneja,17 who virtually opened her creations for the cause of the protest movements, while Kruttika Susarla18 housed a Google drive, storing her protest-​related creations for public consumption. Shilo Shiv Suleman’s19 work “We Belong Here,” and “Weighing Us Down,” and an unknown artist with an Instagram handle Smish Designs20 were amongst the widely preferred repositories by the protestors. Anjali Chandrashekar,21 in association with Creatives Against CAA,22 crowdsourced and curated artworks from artists and made them available for sharing by protesters thereby facilitating wider dialogues (Majumdar, 2019). “Creatives Against CAA” have numerous innovative and informational material, comprising visuals, infographics, usable files, and images that provided enlightening insights into the CAA and were used for campaigns and promotions. The website invited artists to enrich its space with their creative resources and ensured that all the works were accessible under a Creative Commons licence. Ronny Sen’s23 “Bol Kyon” and Shahroz Ahmad’s24 “Kabool Kro,” a pictorial assortment of news clippings, protest images, and videos, were amongst the popular hits. Protest as performativity All protests, including the anti-​ CAA protest, have been performed and articulated bodily followed by virtual sharing of it, on various platforms.

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  113 Images from the protest site express the political articulation that has been made through the performance of protest that interconnects hostility and solidarity (Butler, 2015). Four images and artworks related to this protest published on Instagram are cited here to exemplify the performativity of the protest: 1 Anirban Gosh,25 an artist, who visited the protest site and published artworks on social media, argues that the resilience of the women who have been protesting makes this protest a unique one: A quick visit to the protest site fills you up with optimism and empathy, all over the place the passing of snacks and tea, mothers sitting with their children producing cordiality to make you feel straightaway welcomed. There is enough inspiration to educate yourself and spring to action in whatever way possible. Talk to a friend who is still blinded by hatred, contribute financially to the right places so that this resistance can be sustained, create and amplify messages to educate yourself and those around you, and re-​read the Constitution of India. Let the truth not get buried under the propaganda. 2 Zubair Ahmed Khan, President of Jamia Students Forum of Jamia Millia Islamia (2018–​2020), posted this image26 and narrative: Meeran Haider, a PhD scholar of Jamia Millia Islamia, has been languishing behind bars for more than a year. He has been vocal and worked within the constitutional

Figure 8.2 An Instagram post of Anirban Gosh, depicting the protest performance of the women at Shaheen Bagh.

114  Senthivel Arulselvan

Figure 8.3 One of the activists of Jamia Millia Islamia, Meeran Haider, is addressing a gathering at JMI.

framework, a sincere activist who contributed significantly to building political participation on the University campus. He has been charged with UAPA, because of being one of the prominent faces of the anti-​CAA movement. Dissent is not a crime. He is in prison today, counting on our support. We must not forget him. 3 A popular face at the Shaheen Bagh protest site was a newborn baby, Mohammed Jahaan, attended by her mother. The baby died during the last week of January 2020, after being affected by a cold, following acquaintance to the cold weather prevailed at the protest site. The parents of the child, Mohammed Arif and Nazia, hail from Uttar Pradesh. The father of the baby, Arif, an e-​rickshaw driver said, “I could not earn adequately in the past few months. Now with our baby’s passing, we have lost the whole lot,” viewing a photo of his baby Mohammed Jahaan tiring a woolen cap that read “I Love My India.”27 4 In another image, Jamia Millia Islamia University students were painting protest images28 on the road, while a policeman is watching the artwork of the students, the comment given in the image in the Hindi language says: “Azadi’s team was not afraid of the bullets of the baktas.29 The police stood watching the spectacle. Has the mountain of hatred become so big now?”

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  115 Here the performativity endorses the “power of persons and assemblies” (Certeau, 1984), while the performance embraces enthusiastic articulation and imagining of the participants. Performing the protest has intervened in the “affection and presence” (Becker, 2017), whereby the Indian society has endorsed politics and the life the protestors desire, through their engagements by pleasing and “proclaiming what is proper through the improper” (Rancière & Panagia, 2000). Here, communication technologies have made it possible, for information and scene production a continuous show that is retained, and renewed, “lending a new facet to the time and space of the performance” (Cadena-​Roa et al., 2021). Manifestation of individual faith Apart from performances, one of the epoch-​making contributions of artists to the anti-​CAA protest movements in India is by comics maker and researcher Ita Mherotra, through her series of a caricature published on Instagram, based on dialogues and conversations she had with the dissenting women of Shaheen Bagh. Later she also compiled the Instagram images and added more to make it a book. This book has documented protest moments from Shaheen Bagh, from end to end, and the representation of women’s stories in art and text. Ita Mehrotra also had emotional discourses, arguments, and queries that were raised about pertinent political conceptions such as social conscience, social equality, and subaltern rights over the passage of the protest movement. The book, full of protest images, takes us through the protest that transformed how women’s agency in movements would be perceived and assumed henceforth (Ita, 2021). The following two images30 posted on Instagram by Ita Mehrotra during the protest period demonstrate her desire for personal action to galvanise the protest. The first image points out that Muslim women are proud nationals of India, and they wear national symbols even during the protests. So, one young girl is raising the Indian national flag in the midst of protesting Muslim women at Shaheen Bagh. Another image31 posted by Ita Malhotra is about the imprisonment of Umar Khalid, a student leader of Jawaharlal Nehru University, for closer to a year. On 300 days of Umar Khalid in jail, the artist was thinking of and in solidarity with students, activists, and human rights workers who were wrongfully imprisoned still, and she reasserts the popular slogan of the protest: “we will not forget.” An image of Bilkis,32 one of the popular activists of Shaheen Bagh, drawn and posted by Sajeev Sethumadhavan, a Palghat-​based designer, cited a few sentences from Journalist-​activist, Rana Ayub,33 who wrote a story of Bilkis, amongst the 100 most influential people in the world, in the Time34 Magazine. “Bilkis grow into the representation of struggle in a homeland where the expressions of womanhood and minorities were being steadily gone under. An old but lively face was easy to tell Bilkis Bano on top of the crowd. She came to be called the ‘Dadi of Shaheen Bagh,’ and was a crucial manifestation of the sustained struggle at Shaheen Bagh.”35

116  Senthivel Arulselvan

Figure 8.4 Ita Mehrotra posted this post on Instagram, extending her support to the protesting women at Shaheen Bagh.

Figure 8.5 In commemoration of 300 days of imprisonment of Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Umar Khalid, artist Ita Mehrotra posted this artwork on Instagram.

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  117

Figure 8.6 Palghat-​based artist Sajeev Sethumadhavan created this image of Bilkis, an old woman protestor of Shaheen Bagh.

These images have produced and strengthened the anti-​ CAA protest movement consistent with their themes, ideas, and values. Personal action frames do not blow out spontaneously. Persons need to display how they can correct, figure, and part themes (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). As the manifestation of mass-​self communication magnified through the development of social media expertise, and sharing of personalised imageries, as given above “new modes of political engagement, expressiveness, and collective society” (Clare, 2015) are promising. Micro-​level communicative political acts The protest images reveal the profound insightful political actions that emerged out of the lifestyle-​based middle-​level communicative approaches to politics. The postings of artists and activists, ranging from sketches and posters to repositories, demonstrate middle-​level actions of political partaking online call for political engagement profoundly and thoughtfully.

118  Senthivel Arulselvan

Figure 8.7 Sangeetha Alwar posted this how-​to-​guide-​protests on Instagram.

Sangeetha Alwar posted a sequence of images illustrating the process of becoming a protestor and text in her handle.36 Sangeetha Alwar lives and practises in Bangalore/​Mysore. She is a self-​taught artist and illustrator by night and a professor of English by day. Her art has been published in Maintenant, Homegrown.in, Vice Magazine, The Citizen, G5A Magazine, Indian Express, Deccan Herald, Hindustan Times, The News Minute, and Huffington Post. She works with diverse materials, both traditional and digital, to speak about politics, gender, identity, and sexuality. Her recent explorations have been in the field of digital collages dealing with subjects such as body dysmorphia and menstrual health. Sangeetha Alwar narrates the context in which she began posting protest art on Instagram: It’s time for us to wake up. I have had people text me that they cannot participate in the protest marches and they feel like they’re not doing enough … While sharing posts on social media might be helpful, this is not enough. Let’s do our bit, speak to our peers, read the history of our land, equip ourselves with enough knowledge to beat the oppressors’ lies, and read both left and right intellectuals. That’s the basic preparation for a debate. Like Sangeetha Alwar’s mission, a one-​to-​many forms of politically leaning message reveal micro-​level communicative political acts, headed for deployment like more conventional forms of digital activism, without undermining

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  119 the protestors’ political resolve. In support of this, Bennett and Segerberg (2012) contend that online connective action through individual networks encourages persons to accomplish openly shared actions over social media. In the same way, personal acquaintances can be noticeable in encouraging joint action involvement. Several research studies have revealed in what way online communication with somebody’s private linkages aids as a channel linking protestors to their respective movements (Diani, 2000). Protest images contribute to the public sphere Visuals posted on online platforms arrest and intensify the daily life cycle as a chain of instants of opposition and aggravate a rift in the prevailing civil edict (Schober, 2016). As protestors document protest actions, they connect information and aid in raising a counter-​public, and protest pictures can add to an exciting public sphere (Olesen, 2013). Kruttika Susarla, an Andhra Pradesh-​ based artist, posted a series of posters at Creatives Against CAA. Her posters have been widely used by protestors as placards. Her posters are available at the repository, shared with a Creative Commons licence for the use of protestors and non-​commercial use. The repository of Creatives Against CAA offers posters37 and invites activists to download and share the posters, offering due credit to the creator. Pearl D’Souza, a Goa-​based artist, has offered a poster under a Creative Commons Licence, says,38 I try not to contemplate altering the world. I want to modify hearts the way other artists have reformed mine. Knowing that I can produce and use creation to downpour the realm with more kind-​hearted, comprehensive, fresh, constructive imaginings is what I am concentrating on. I think through myself to be a fledgling wishful artist. So I tell myself day after day –​just cling to drawing endlessly and everywhere. As per the contention of Boulianne (2015, p. 534), citizens aggressively involved in social media during social protests, this study reiterates the link between social media usage and political participation, challenging the citizenship amendment act, by devising image as a substantial site of protest, that has contributed to the creation of “counter-​publics” (McGarry, Erhart et al., 2019), to contest prevailing order of power centres, for materialising fresh public significance. Conclusion The anti-​CAA protest movement is considered to be symbolic of a movement for the assertion of equality and retrieval of Muslim civil and political rights in India, and its import lies in the momentous place that is tied up in the shared reminiscence of Indian political society. It has been asserted that

120  Senthivel Arulselvan social networking sites, including Instagram, are becoming an essential chunk of contemporary visual and protest culture, wherein emotions produce ethical shockwaves that grow into motivations for the organisation of protest movements. As proclaimed by the prevailing visual communication literature that pictures are persuasive in conveying pragmatism and emotional demand, the huge number of images posted, shared, and deliberated on Instagram, by the 2019 Delhi anti-​ CAA protestors, have reiterated the position that emotions are essential for protest mobilisation and images produce a crucial part in making robust emotional responses. The study also connects with the two theoretical frameworks with which the study understands the protests: (1) Manifestation of individual faiths, through which the public practise their narratives, aid them to initiate the progression of collective action. Thus, micro-​activism progresses the protest to put up practices of actions. (2) The performativity turn of protest manifests a shift from contemplation towards a rebellion against reality. Notes 1 Pearl D’Souza, Zubair Ahmed Khan, Ita Mehrotra, Sangeetha Alwar, Kruttika Susarla, Sajeev Sethumadhavan A., and Anirban Gosh. 2 #anticaa, #anticaaprotests,#caa, #caaprotests, #creativesagainstcaa, #indiaagains­ tcaa, #indiarejectscaa, #jsa_​jamia 3 For a detailed understanding of the act, refer to the copy of the act available online at the Union Government website: https://​egaze​tte.nic.in/​WriteR​eadD​ata/​1955/​E-​2210-​ 1955-​0023-​101​599.pdf 4 The Assam Accord was a Document of Settlement adopted by the Government of India and the Government of Assam, and the significant protesting student movements such as the All Assam Students’ Union and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad in New Delhi on 15 August 1985, headed to the end of a tension that was propelled by the Students Union in 1979, demanding the documentation and expatriation of unlawful migrants, mostly from neighbouring Bangladesh. This accord aided the culmination of the students’ movement and fetched the protesting students to mainstream politics and later form a government in Assam. 5 The NRC is a register of persons who can found that they came down to India, on 24 March 1971, just one day before neighbouring Bangladesh attained independence. 6 Between 2004 and 2014, the Union of India was governed by another national party, Indian National Congress, popularly called the Congress party. 7 Preceding that the Passport Rules, and the Foreigners Order, were revised. This amendment altered the position of these migrants from illegal migrants to the persecuted interest groups. The Passport Rules rewritten to include Afghanistan. To enable the citizenship position for persecuted minorities of Afghanistan who are not Muslims, these rules and orders were amended on 18 July 2016. 8 inserted clause (b) to Section 2(1), which ascertains the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, or Christian public from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, who arrived in India on 31 December 2014 or before (vide: www.ijlmh.com/​wp-​cont​ent/​ uplo​ads/​2020/​05/​Anti-​CAA-​Prot​est-​%E2%80%93-​The-​Mach​inat​ion.pdf). 9 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are the two houses of the Parliament of India.

Manifestation of protests in Instagram  121 10 Triple Talaq is an exercise that gives a Muslim gent the right to break up marriage with his wife by pronouncing “talaq” three times in one go, in any manner, be it spoken, written, or by electronic means, null and void, has been declared offense, with a sentence for any such guilty party for up to three years. Triple Talaq come to be illegal in India on 1 August 2019, as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 was passed on 26 July 2019. 11 The Parliament of India repealed the special status accorded to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, on 5 August 2019, by an Act. Consequently, the region has been bifurcated into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir as one territory and Ladakh as another territory. Thus far, Jammu and Kashmir region had a distinctive position amongst the states of India, by having a separate Constitution and a few laws enacted by the Parliament of India apply to other states were valid in the region. Article 370 of the Constitution, which provides such a legal position to the distinctness, has come to an end. 12 Though this was a decision of the Supreme Court, and not of the government of India. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, comprising Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan, and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, on 9 November 2019, held that there was evidence to back the Hindus’ belief that the “Janma Asthan” was situated where the Babri Masjid was erected and the court upheld that the title suit of the juristic personality of Ram Lalla over the Ramjanmabhoomi-​Babri mosque site. This judgment paved the way for commencing the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. 13 https://​twit​ter.com/​naren​dram​odi/​sta​tus/​1206​4928​5037​8002​432?lang=​en 14 Being supportive on political or social grounds in a manner regarded as encompassing flimsy power or obligation. 15 www.stati​sta.com/​sta​tist​ics/​578​364/​countr​ies-​with-​most-​instag​ram-​users/​ 16 www.firstp​ost.com/​tech/​news-​analy​sis/​caa-​peo​ple-​use-​instag​ram-​tik​tok-​to-​raise-​ awareness-​on-​how-​to-​organise-​protests-​7800611.html 17 www.instag​ram.com/​san​itar​ypan​els/​?hl=​en 18 www.instag​ram.com/​krutt​ika/​ 19 www.instag​ram.com/​shilo​shiv​sule​man/​?hl=​en 20 www.instag​ram.com/​smish​desi​gns/​?hl=​en 21 www.instag​ram.com/​anja​lich​andr​ashe​kar/​?hl=​en 22 www.instag​ram.com/​crea​tive​saga​inst​caa/​?hl=​en 23 www.instag​ram.com/​ronny​sen/​?hl=​en 24 www.instag​ram.com/​imshah​roz/​?hl=​en 25 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​B7Fm​sCdF​V_​S/​ 26 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CQSg​DEiH​3mS/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 27 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​B8JY​QMNn​CF9/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 28 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​B85X​zqHn​cFs/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 29 Bhaktas, a native word, refers to members of hardcore militants of the Hindu nationalist movement. 30 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CSloN-​9pT6P/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 31 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CRJP​xU7p​lPB/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 32 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​CHou​uFMB​mL_​/​?utm​_​med​ium=​copy_​l​ink 33 www.instag​ram.com/​ranaay​yub/​ 34 https://​time.com/​col​lect​ion/​100-​most-​infl​uent​ial-​peo​ple-​2020/​5888​255/​bil​kis/​ 35 https://​twit​ter.com/​ranaay​yub/​sta​tus/​1308​6534​1249​4393​345?lang=​bg

122  Senthivel Arulselvan 3 6 www.instag​ram.com/​p/​B6Kp​3G6h​D_​v/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​ig_​we​b_​co​py_​l​ink 37 https://​crea​tive​saga​inst​caa.kada​kcol​lect​ive.com/​post​ers/​ 38 In an interview with alfalfastudio: https://​alfalf​astu​dio.com/​2019/​06/​12/​pearl-​dso​ uza-​inclus​ive-​raw-​posit​ive/​

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9 Communication practices, new media technologies, and anarchist movements The website of the Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas as a “one stop shop” Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti

Introduction The 21st century witnessed the development of a massive wave of protests around the world (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). As a result of the social unrest caused by financial crises, austerity policies, political crises, and totalitarian regimes, many countries saw the emergence of new social and solidarity initiatives (Biekart and Fowler, 2013; Douzinas, 2013). Among these initiatives, anarchist or anarchistic (quasi anarchist) (Day, 2004) movements have also been growing. In addition, traditional anarchist principles –​autonomy, voluntary association, self-​organisation, mutual aid, direct democracy –​seem to permeate a wide range of social movements (Lederman, 2015, p. 244). One such example is the case of Rouvikonas, a Greek anarchist organisation that was formed in 2013 primarily by those participating in the VOX squat in the area of Exarchia (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). Rouvikonas’ ideology, according to its manifesto and the relevant statements of its members, is based on the classic principles of anarchism. The group’s protest repertoire can well be categorised under what Vaiou and Kalandides (2017) have termed as micro acts of resistance. It involves small-​scale protest tactics that range from peaceful demonstrations, sit-​ins, to paint attacks and more aggressive ones such as the destruction of property. As a result of its unconventional tactics and the mainstream media framing of the group as showing solidarity to national terrorist groups (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021), Rouvikonas has been at the epicentre of much controversy in the Greek public sphere. Nonetheless, the group’s denunciation rhetoric and focus on social injustices have increased its appeal to certain groups in the Greek society. Having as starting point and theoretical framework the theory of the “circuit of protest” of a social movement, thus (1) the production of movement discourses and the discursive construction of its collective identity; (2) the internal and external communicative practices enacted by the movement; (3) mainstream media representations of the movement; and (4) the reception DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-9

126  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti of the movement and the media discourse by non-​activist citizens (Cammaerts, 2018), the proposed chapter focuses on the external communication practices of the movement. For the purpose of this study, the group’s website (rouvikonas. gr) has been chosen as the examination terrain. It can be approached as an anarchist “one-​stop shop,” designating the desire of the movement to promote its anarchist doctrine as openly and widely as possible in order to attract more members, and to act as the communication battering ram of anarchism in Greece. The purpose of this research is not to assess the group’s protest tactics or make any moral judgements, rather it is to examine its communication strategy and provide insights on its role for the development of the movement. About anarchism Defining anarchism has always been difficult (Swann, 2015), with no clear consensus even among anarchists (Clough and Blumberg, 2012, p. 337). Thus, it is maybe better to speak of “anarchisms” with diverging theoretical and methodological influences (Clough and Blumberg, 2012, p. 337; Swann, 2015, p. 6). Anarchism can be rather broadly approached as a “social, economic, and political philosophy and social movement that opposes the existence of hierarchical power and authority, while at the same time promotes horizontal, cooperative, and egalitarian social relations” (Williams, 2019, p. 754). Influenced by the most radical currents of the Enlightenment, anarchism emerged as a revolt against the solidifying nation-​state, early capitalism, and the influence of religious authority. For these reasons, anarchism rejects capitalism, landlordism, and states –​all of which are seen as centralising wealth and power in the hands of small ruling classes, as well as the authoritarian family and multiple forms of inequality, including gender oppression, colonialism, nation, and race (van der Walt, 2016, p. 351). Anarchists not only critiqued the centralising and bureaucratic qualities of these institutions, but advocated the creation of horizontal, egalitarian, and cooperative institutions in their place (Williams and Lee, 2012, p. 559; van der Walt, 2016, p. 351). Horizontalist organisations aim to be popular, independent of power centres, collectivist, and directly democratic (Sitrin, 2006), sharing or stepping on some basic parameters of anarchism, even though not all of their members consider themselves as anarchists. This anarchist(ic) (Day, 2004) rationale promotes organisational structures, communication, and deliberative approaches to maximise these values. Relatively small organisations, impermanent or limited leadership, inclusive communication styles, and consensus-​ based decision-​ making procedures are expressions of direct-​ democratic anarchist values in organisations (Williams, 2018, p. 3). In the public sphere, anarchism is associated usually with violence and chaos (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). Distorted conclusions about anarchism result from notions propagated mainly by state actors and the media (Williams, 2018, p. 2). Despite anarchism being an intellectual tradition, media commonly uses “anarchy” to signify chaos and disaster. The term “anarchist” is framed by media in a predominantly negative way, implying directly that anarchism is an

Communication practices and new media technologies  127 inherently violent philosophy (Rosie and Gorringe, 2009). Relevant research has shown that corporate mainstream media’s typical depiction of anarchists is extremely imbalanced, presenting little contextual information, only reporting police statements, ignoring activists’ words, and depicting anarchists as instigators of trouble, regardless of facts (Koca-​Helvaci, 2016; Williams, 2018). On their behalf, anarchists reject such aphorisms and describe anarchism as a rational and constructive response to any form of (repressive) hierarchy and domination (Williams, 2018, p. 2). At times, anarchists have advocated violence in the form of “propaganda of the deed” (Heywood, 2017) or bloody revolution as means for achieving liberation. Nevertheless, support for violence for its own sake represents a minority position in the anarchist tradition (Gibson, 2013, p. 339). On one hand, when violence is being used, it is considered a form of revenge or retribution, since violence comes from the oppression and exploitation that politicians, industrialists, judges, the police, and others inflict on the working masses. In addition, violence is seen by several anarchists as a way of raising political consciousness and stimulating the masses to revolt (Heywood, 2017). On the other hand, violence has not always been considered the ideal method for anarchist activism. The principle of non-​violence has appealed to several anarchists as well, since it considers human beings as moral and autonomous creatures, who are entitled to be treated with compassion and respect, and –​on top of that –​the rationale of “fighting” for your beliefs in a non-​violent way demonstrates the strength and moral purity of one’s convictions and may –​ thus –​be more compelling in terms of disseminating the anarchist idea(l)s (Heywood, 2017). Contrary to popular belief, anarchism does not mean complete disorder. One of the important threads connecting the many different currents of anarchism is the importance of organisation (Heywood, 2017). Bakunin (quoted in Juris, 2004, p. 353) wrote that a central value of anarchism is organisation based on grassroots participation from below rather than centralised command from above. In anarchist movements, the goal is to form democratic and anti-​authoritarian organisational structures that respond to the needs for autonomy, such as affinity groups (Day, 2004; Williams, 2018, p. 5). Contemporary anarchist(ic) social movements are characterised by an opposition to the agenda of globalising capital and the associated neoliberal ideology that brings privatisation, deregulation, and unemployment to the Global North and structural adjustment programmes and increasing impoverishment to the Global South. This opposition may come from all classes, identity groups, and causes, from all parts of the world (Day, 2004). The communication of social movements Social movements are “dynamic communication systems” (Fuchs, 2006, p. 101) within which individual and collective communication practices produce alternative understandings and oppositional framings that contest and seek to transform “large-​scale, collective changes in the domains

128  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti of state policy, corporate practice, social structure, cultural norms, and daily lived experience” (Ganesh, Zoller, and Cheney, 2005, cited in Mann, 2015, p. 159). In any given movement, movement actions –​such as strategy, lobbying, mobilising, debating, protesting, emailing, phoning, assessing, celebrating –​involve communication (Cammaerts, Mattoni, and McCurdy, 2013, p. 154). Media and communication matter in a variety of ways for social movements. Every new and emerging media and communication technology that has become available, whether print, audio recording, telecommunication, broadcasting, or the internet, has been appropriated by activists to achieve various goals and aims linked to their struggles (Cammaerts, Mattoni, and McCurdy, 2013, p. 4; Mattoni and Treré, 2014, p. 260; Cammaerts, 2018, p. 14; Prentoulis and Kyriakidou, 2019). A plethora of studies has explored the relationship between social movements and the media over the last decades (Cammaerts, 2018). Largely, this can be explained by the emergence of digital media and communication technologies such as the internet, mobile phones, and social media applications, and how they are seen to be essential tools for activists to mobilise and to communicate across time and space (Mattoni and Treré, 2014, p. 259; Prentoulis and Kyriakidou, 2019, p. 25). The framework that best describes our approach for the scope of the current research is the concept of “communication ecology,” which emphasises the fact that information technologies and other forms of communication are intertwined with other social practices within specific environments (Mattoni, 2017, p. 495). According to Nardi and O’ Day (1999, p. 49), communication ecology is “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular environment, whose spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology.” Focusing on the level of production of meaning and the expression of a collective self-​identity, social movement actors produce or encode meaning through negotiated discourses and frames (Conover et al., 2013, p. 1; Treré, 2015, p. 903), whereby the former represents inherent contingency, and the latter, strategic attempts to fix meaning, to establish ideological boundaries and to construct a “we” versus “them” rhetoric as a basis for a collective self-​ definition (Rovisco, Veneti, and Poulakidakos, 2018). At this level of analysis, collective identities and ideological enemies are constructed, solutions to the problems the movement wants to tackle are imagined, and a call to action is articulated (Cammaerts, 2018, p. 29). The case of Rouvikonas Following the signing of the bailout treaty in May 2010, Greece witnessed an unprecedented wave of anti-​austerity protests involving mass mobilisations (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). This anti-​austerity resistance came about as much as a response to the austerity policies imposed on Greece and the

Communication practices and new media technologies  129 subsequent dismantling of the welfare state (Simiti, 2014, pp. 4–​5), at a time when citizens had lost faith in traditional political systems and institutions (Rovisco et al., 2018; Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). Beyond the mass mobilisations, collective action in Greece has also been practised through everyday forms of grassroots resistance and solidarity initiatives, such as solidarity economy initiatives, social pharmacies, food banks, and other such collective/​social initiatives (Rovisco et al., 2018; Vaiou and Kalandides, 2017). As Vaiou and Kalandides (2017, p. 451) argue “daily routines of solidarity produce new interactions between people, create new spaces of emotional or material support, induce practices of exchange and inevitably conflict.” As Rovisco et al. (2018, p. 42) argue, such movements aim at “disseminating the rationale of civic disobedience, through a grassroots activism, against the unfair legislations and policies that suppress the lower and middle classes of society.” Rouvikonas, named after the Italian river Rubicon, self-​identifies as a “political, fighting, anarchist formulation” that advocates stateless societies and whose main purpose is to overturn the status quo and support social struggles against exploitation and oppression (Rouvikonas, 2017). The organisation is based on the central Athens area of Exarcheia, a neighbourhood recognised as the socio-​spatial epicentre of the Athenian anarchist and anti-​authoritarian milieu, wherein several self-​ organised spaces, groups, and initiatives have thrived (Karlin, 2022). Rouvikonas ensures that any action it initiates is clearly carried out in its name, as they want to be solely responsible for their political activity. The organisation’s primary targets include politicians, parties, and mainstream media, as well as well-​known businessmen. Within several years, the group carried out numerous acts against political facilities (Greek government facilities, foreign embassies, the representative offices of European institutions, multinational corporations, etc.) (Blockmans and Russack, 2019; Mylonas, 2018; Mylonas 2019). According to Giorgos Kalaitzidis, a member of the movement, Rouvikonas chooses targets that “should be able to speak for themselves” (Rouvikonas, 2017). Rouvikonas employs a variety of tactics ranging from occupation of offices, the distribution of flyers and paint attacks, to more aggressive ones that include the destruction of property (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). The movement acknowledges that some of its actions violate the law, but argues that its ideology justifies political violence, as potentially inevitable in such political battles (Rouvikonas, 2017). Issues about injustices are central to Rouvikonas’ discourse and subsequently reflected to the movement’s protest tactics and selection of targets. Giorgos Kalaitzidis (member of the movement) argues that we believe that political violence is an integral part of social movements across time and countries. […] However, using violence comes with pre-​ requisites: it should be effective, just, ethical, and to be understood by the

130  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti people. Thereupon the targets need to be self-​evident and not subject to any moral doubts. (Rouvikonas, 2017) A predominantly negative portrayal of the group, in the Greek and international mainstream media, relies on a very negative, mainstream –​both historical and contemporary –​portrayal and conception of anarchism as developed in late-​19th-​and early-​20th-​century Europe and America; whereby “individual acts of violence by discontented members confirmed for the mainstream the inherent criminal nature of the entire movement” (Goyens, 2009, p. 441; Merriman, 2009). Despite the negative media framing of the movement’s activities –​in times being framed as “terrorist activities” and invasions –​Rouvikonas has reached an audience in the Greek society. Public opinion research conducted by Kapa Research (December 2018) showed that 8% of the respondents “would vote for Rouvikonas, if it participated in the Greek elections in the form of a political party,” while 13% evaluated Rouvikonas’ activism in a positive way. Though these percentages may seem rather low, one has to bear in mind that they refer to the public acceptance of an organisation belonging to the diachronically marginalised ideological spectrum of anarchism. Despite not having any research evidence to support it, the group’s own communication regarding its activities, focusing on their battle against injustice, may well partly explain this support. As part of its communication quiver, Rouvikonas has a YouTube channel with 5.15K subscribers, a Facebook community page with more than 6.5k people following it (as by the time this paper was written), and a website, which constitutes the focus of this chapter. Research questions and method In this chapter, we examine the home page of the website of Rouvikonas (rouvikonas.gr) and seek to address the key aspects of its communication strategy as emerging from its content. Our main research questions are: In which ways does the content of the home page of Rouvikonas’ website reflect its communication strategy? Which are the key aspects of this strategy as evident by the content in the movement’s website? In order to analyse Rouvikonas’ website, we employed multimodal analysis. Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) use the term multimodality to express the fact that the way we communicate very rarely involves a single form of communication and is realised simultaneously through a number of modes. The combination of these different ways of communication forms multimodality, that is, combinations of visual, language, sound, etc., in order to form a complete communication process. The study of such a multimodal communication process, multimodal analysis, combines in a common level of detail all modes of communication as semiotic systems themselves, whose possible choices, shapes, and grammars can be explored and recorded (Machin, 2007, p. x).

Communication practices and new media technologies  131 At the same time, it shares with traditional semiotic analyses the assumption that all semiotic forms are social semiotic systems that allow us to negotiate social relations and power relations (Hodge and Kress, 1998). “When we want to form a message, we choose the semiotic means we use. But none of these options are neutral. They are all motivated by self-​interest” (Machin, 2007, p. xii). Visual meaning-​making options work in tandem with the ways in which language creates ideological forms (Lilleker et al., 2019). Thus, in our analysis, we analysed all the different communication modes (written, visual, and audio) that co-​exist on Rouvikonas’ website homepage and are structurally combined in such ways so as to promote its communication, ideological and activistic identity. Analysis The website of Rouvikonas was introduced in late 2019, to constitute the web communication centre of the movement. The latest free available metrics1 on 30 April 2022 indicate that the website has a total of 5.2K unique visitors during April 2022, each visitor visits 1.54 pages per visit, and each visit lasts for about 1.5 minutes. The limited number of monthly visits demonstrates that the website still hasn’t become a significant communication node for Rouvikonas and perspective followers/​supporters of the movement. Apart from that, visitors practically visit only the home page of the website (average of 1.54 pages per visit), even though the site includes seven different pages (home page, Political Identity, Anarchist Organisation, anti-​ fascism, K-​ VOX, Internationalism, Movement). The main reason behind that may well be the fact that the home/​ landing page of the site is overloaded with information –​as we shall see in the following parts of our analysis –​so that one doesn’t need to look for information in other pages, especially if they are interested in contemporary and past activities of Rouvikonas, or in joining the organisation. In addition, the limited time each visitor spends on the site may be connected to the prevalent rationale of face-​to-​face interaction that permeates the anarchist organisation. In this sense, the use of the Internet has not replaced face-​to-​face coordination and interaction but has complemented and facilitated it, since in anarchist organisations and/​or movements complex planning, policy discussions, and relationship building take place in physical settings (Juris, 2004, p. 348) (e.g., in the case of Rouvikonas once a week, every Monday, as stated in an interview of Rouvikonas members in the “new media” section of the home page). As already mentioned, the home page is overloaded with a big amount and wide variety of information regarding the movement and its multifaceted activities, hence it constitutes the “epicentre” of the website, seeking to provide each visitor with a big amount of information “at once,” just with a simple up and down scroll. This information is provided in all different possible content forms (text, image, audiovisual content, audio content). On the top left side of the page there is a big banner that calls visitors to join the movement and provides information (open hours and places/​venues) for

132  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti anyone that would like to visit in person one of the movement’s social centres and join Rouvikonas. The same banner can be found in Rouvikonas’ Facebook community page, signifying the constant effort of the movement to expand itself in terms of members that will support its activities, valuing the rationale of organisation from “below” (Bakunin, quoted in Juris, 2004). This invitation to join the movement/​call to action has been introduced on the website and the Facebook community page and didn’t exist in any of the YouTube videos of Rouvikonas until rather recently (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). Right beside the banner calling for new members, on the upper central part of the home page, there is a carousel presenting through text and images the three most recent/​shortly upcoming activities of Rouvikonas and other anarchist movements, so that the visitors directly get this information if they want to attend any of the upcoming events. This eagerness to immediately inform the visitor for the activities and the ideological priorities of the movement permeates the home page of the website as a whole. In alignment with prevalent anarchist practices (Heywood, 2017), the most important part of the home page is dedicated to “propaganda of the deed,” which appears to be prioritised over the detailed/​extensive presentation of the ideological background of the movement. The activities presented through text and images in this section appear to address topical social issues, in the rationale that Rouvikonas accomplishes activities that “speak for themselves.” This section is divided into four different filters/​categories: “video,” “street,” “actions,” “massive address to the basis (of society)” and includes videos/​ images and rather extensive –​in most cases –​escorting texts of no less than 430 actions of the movement (approximately from October 2013 to 30 April 2022). All these activities seem to share a common commitment to non-​authoritarian organisation based on mutual aid, affinity-​based organisation, and prefigurative politics (Clough and Blumberg, 2012, p. 340). More specifically, in close connection to previous research on the video activism of Rouvikonas (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021), still and motion pictures seem to play a really important role in the dissemination of the “propaganda of the deed” of the organisation. All posts contain “visual proof ” of the activities of Rouvikonas, seeking to serve a three-​fold aim. First, the visual elements of the posts (either images and/​or videos) operate as an archive for action and activist memory, aiming to “archive” and present at any given moment the activistic past of the organisation. Second, they act as a tool to raise awareness of social injustices. Rouvikonas employs a specific rationale of tactics –​interventions in private and public spaces; more specifically a usually small number of group members invades in various spaces –​from governmental buildings to private companies –​in order to express its discontent towards perceived social injustice. Through such practices, Rouvikonas attempts to attract public attention to social injustices in a disruptive and affective way. Third, these videos work as a tool to communicate the collective identity of the organisation. The production, and control over the dissemination, of their own material, allows Rouvikonas to share their own messages

Communication practices and new media technologies  133 in their preferred way (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). In this sense, the visual documentation of Rouvikonas’ activities in order to be posted on the website and further disseminated by any other means, either online or offline, is as important as the activity itself. The numerous and multifaceted activities of the movement and their systematic documentation are of utmost importance for the sheer existence of the movement and its effort to “recruit” new members, especially since it is placed at the “fringe” of public sphere, due to its anarchist ideology (Williams, 2018) and the idiosyncrasy of its activities. Complementary to the visual elements of the posts are the usually extensive texts presenting each action of the movement and seeking –​through this presentation –​to disseminate the ideological doctrine of the organisation. The post for the gathering of Rouvikonas’ members outside a fast-​food store in Athens on 25 March2022 (https://​rou​viko​nas.gr/​archi​ves/​5604) stands as a characteristic example. The text on the post refers to the deterioration of working conditions in Greece: “In recent years, however, there has been a continuation of the incessant attack of the state and capital on our labor rights” in order to first set up the ideological context and resonance for the specific action, and then it describes the incident of (labour) injustice to which the movement responds with its action: As it became known from the complaint of the employee himself in the Network of Food Workers, the management of the store considered a sufficient condition and justification of dismissal of the employee his refusal to work on the days when the whole of Athens was immobilized by this year’s snowfall. Hence, each reader/​visitor usually gets ideologically contextualised information on each of Rouvikonas’ actions. This rationale enables people to engage themselves in a critical way with anarchism and its aims. As Goldman has pointed out, “anarchism urges people to think, to research, to analyze every proposal” (Clough and Blumberg, 2012, p. 338) in order to make each individual critically engage with social reality, its institutions, and structures. The last part of most texts usually refers to the demands raised by each specific action. In the same case, the text ends by putting forward Rouvikonas’ demands, in several cases in capital letters to add more emphasis: Bosses and the state have not existed and can never exist at the same negotiating table as our class. WE WILL NOT DIE FOR YOUR PROFITS WE DO NOT ASK FOR OUR DIGNITY AND OUR RIGHTS, WE DEMAND THEM. SOLIDARITY TO THE DISMISSED DISTRIBUTOR OF GOODY’S PERISTERIOU. Another interesting aspect of the discursive description of Rouvikonas’ actions is the use of specific verbs to describe the “intensity of violence” implemented included in their protest tactics. Rouvikonas’ protest repertoire involves a

134  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti diverse range of tactics such as occupation of offices, the distribution of flyers, and paint attacks, to more aggressive ones such as the destruction of property (Veneti and Poulakidakos, 2021). In order to describe the different protest tactics implemented each time, Rouvikonas members appear to make use of three specific words that can be found in most of the titles of the posts describing their actions: gathering, intervention, and attack. “Gatherings” refer to protests taking place on specific locations (e.g., private enterprises, ministries), where members of the movement gather to protest for their demands in a dynamic but mostly peaceful way. “Interventions” describe actions in which the movement members enter the premises of private or public organisations and throw away flyers or paint walls with specific slogans. “Attacks” refer to activities including partial destruction of property, the most severe form of violence implemented by Rouvikonas’ members. In a similar vein, related with and seeking to underline the movement’s anti-​establishment rationale, posts are consistently documenting police forces arresting group members after some of their protests. In this way, Rouvikonas stresses out the repressive nature of the state and the excessive reaction of the police to its protest tactics. This repression goes hand in hand with the predominantly negative representation of the organisation by the mainstream media, as is the case with anarchist organisations (Koca-​Helvaci, 2016; Williams, 2018). As evident from the relevant posts in the “propaganda of the deed” section, the movement is also involved in social kitchens and other solidarity actions to support poor/​ homeless people and immigrants/​refugees and constitutes part of a recently established coalition of social movements called “Coordination of solidarity structures of Attica.” Moving on with the analysis of Rouvikonas’ home page, on the right-​ hand side of the “propaganda of the deed” menu, one can find posts related to the feminist and student branches of the group. Each of the branches are dedicated to dealing with contemporary issues raised within the Greek Universities and society as a whole like sexism, sexual harassment/​violence incidents, and any other issues of abuse of power. Rouvikonas has been long involved as a strong supporter of the #metoo movement, seeking to fight the repressive nature of patriarchy and its negative imprint on the Greek society. Scrolling down the home page one can find additional banners/​ pictures referring to events that Rouvikonas organises or participates, whereas in the “Announcements” section on the left-​hand side, the visitor can find recent statements published by the group on issues related to their protests/​demands and other anarchism-​related issues. The lower half of the home page of Rouvikonas’ website is actually dedicated to the presentation of the ideological orientation of the movement. It is used primarily to construct its collective identity and the ideological enemies (Cammaerts, 2018, p. 29). First, the visitor can find a green frame where, by hitting on various “keywords” such as nationalism, fascism, NGOs, ecology, anarchism, anti-​ memorandum, state, crisis, Media, one can read about the movement’s position on each of these “keywords.”

Communication practices and new media technologies  135 Scrolling further down, the visitor finds the “new media” section, which includes audiovisual material (35 files in total, 16 of them radio broadcasts of Rouvikonas’ members through the frequency of ERTOpen2 and almost all the rest interviews of key members of the movement). Τhat material seeks to familiarise the visitor with Rouvikonas’ ideological orientation and activistic priorities. In accordance with this rationale, one can find the interview of two key members of Rouvikonas (Giorgos Kalaitzidis and Nikos Mataragas) presented in this section in four videos/​parts, in which the members make a rather extensive presentation of Rouvikonas, talking about the name of the organisation, the organisational structure/​divisions, and its evolution based on the increase of the number of members participating in Rouvikonas, as well as the activistic priorities of the organisation. Two parameters are quite interesting regarding this audiovisual material. First, that the members of Rouvikonas do not hide their identity, contrary to the practices of members of other anarchist groups in Greece, which –​at least until the emergence of Rouvikonas –​were reluctant to disclose identities of their members. That fact alone constitutes one more major communicational breakthrough for anarchism in Greece. Second, the “openness” of the organisation to new members. As G. Kalaitzidis points out in one of the videos: The political framework of Rouvikonas, which is closely related to the organizational one, accepts new members even outside the anarchist community. People self-​identified as communists or even having no relation with politics. The next section is called “repression,” where Rouvikonas establishes its ideological boundaries and constructs a “we” versus “them” rhetoric (Rovisco, Veneti, and Poulakidakos, 2018). In this section one can find videos with statements against Rouvikonas and the anarchist movement in Greece, as well as other political/​journalistic texts and legal prosecutions against members of the organisation. The last (but not least) part at the bottom of the home page is dedicated to “solidarity” either from Rouvikonas (e.g., social kitchens, solidarity to workers), or to Rouvikonas (e.g., crowdfunding for court fees after state prosecutions against members of the organisation), presenting the rationale of solidarity and mutual aid that permeates anarchist organisations. Conclusion For the purpose of this study, our implementation of multimodal analysis consisted of an initial content and structural analysis of the home page of the website of the Greek anarchist group Rouvikonas. Our starting point have been theories about anarchism and the communication practices of social movements (Heywood, 2017; Cammaerts, 2018). Rouvikonas constitutes an interesting case study, as despite its controversial reputation, the group’s communication strategy (employment of video-​activism and taking advantage of

136  Stamatis Poulakidakos and Anastasia Veneti social media affordances) has enabled it to communicate anarchist activism in the wider Greek society. The group’s acts of resistance have attracted wide media attention, despite that being mainly negative. As our analysis demonstrates, the home/​ landing page of the site of Rouvikonas is overloaded with information, aiming to serve as a “one-​stop shop” for information regarding the organisation and its activities. This information is presented in a multimodal way (texts, images, audiovisual material), a fact that could potentially reduce the negative impression that an information “saturated” web page might cause to any user. Of major importance among the content of the home page is the “propaganda of the deed” (Heywood, 2017) section in which Rouvikonas presents its activities through the use of text and visual content (images and/​or videos). The detailed documentation of Rouvikonas’ activities in order to be posted on the website and further disseminated by any other means, either online or offline, is as important as the activity itself. The numerous and multifaceted activities of the movement and their systematic documentation are of utmost importance for the sheer existence of the movement and its effort to “recruit” new members, especially since it is placed at the “fringe” of public sphere, due to its anarchist ideology (Williams, 2018). Furthermore, a significant part of the home page is dedicated to the construction of the collective identity and the ideological enemies (Cammaerts, 2018, p. 29) of Rouvikonas. To this end, we have to note two significant communicational parameters: First, the eponymous statements/​ interviews of Rouvikonas’ members, which contradict the prevalent tendency of anarchist activists to anonymity, and second, the fact that Rouvikonas as an organisation is –​according to the statement of its members –​practically open to anyone (either in or out of the anarchist movement/​ideology) who wants to join the group and contribute to the fulfilment of its aims. These two parameters constitute a major leap in the communication strategy of an anarchist movement. As expected, Rouvikonas is active on topical issues and its horizontal organisational structure includes different subgroups, each of them specialised in a different topic/​task. On the home page one can see the several activities by the feminist and student sectors of Rouvikonas. These activities –​among many others –​aim to raise awareness on social injustice and attract public attention and new members for the movement. The group’s unconventional tactics of resistance as well as the rather sophisticated use of new media technologies demonstrates, as evidenced in multiple studies, that post-​2010 activists, ranging from smaller-​scale movements like Rouvikonas to mass mobilisation ones such as the Occupy Movement, BLM etc., have found new ways of “doing politics” and communicating their aims and actions (Howard and Muzammil, 2013; Kavada, 2015; Bennett and Segerberg, 2013). Notes 1 www.sim​ilar​web.com/​webs​ite/​rou​viko​nas.gr/​?utm​_​sou​rce=​addon&utm​_​med​ium=​ fire​fox&utm_​cont​ent=​hea​der&utm_​c​ampa​ign=​cta-​but​ton&from_​ext=​1#overv​iew.

Communication practices and new media technologies  137 2 ERTOpen was the radio station created and run by journalists –​former employees of the Greek public TV and radio service (ERT) after it was suddenly shut down on 11 June 2013 by the coalition government of the conservative New Democracy (ND), the socio-​democrat PASOK, and the centre-​left Democratic Left (DIMAR). Right after ERT was shut down, DIMAR left the coalition (the cabin ministers of DIMAR resigned), expressing its disagreement with this decision. Even though the official ERT has been re-​opened by the government of SYRIZA on 11 June 11 2015 (exactly two years after its shutting down), ERTopen remains open and functional through a news website (www.erto​pen.com) and a web radio (based at least partially on direct crowdfunding). By being active through ERTOpen, its journalists protest against the enforcement of direct control by any Greek government on the official ERT.

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10 Seeds of another world Jinwar Women’s Commune in Rojava Emre Sahin

Introduction From Chiapas to Rojava,1 communities have increasingly been practicing everyday forms of grassroots organizing and solidarity in order to create the world that they want in their day-​ to-​ day relationships and activities. Prefiguration centers around the idea that present politics can and should practice elements of a desired future (Maeckelberg, 2011, p. 4). Opposition to the state, capitalism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are central concepts of these movements, and participants organize around the principles of direct democracy, horizontality, and autonomy. What distinguishes prefigurative movements from other social movements is that they are not concerned with attaining state power in order to bring change (Holloway, 2002, p. 15). Since 2012, the residents of Rojava have been organizing their political, social, and economical lives around these principles and transforming their society at an unprecedented pace and scope. Popular structures of direct democracy span across Rojava and are organized on four different levels ranging from the street to the regional. Women’s liberation has been at the center of everyday life’s revolutionary transformation, and women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds shape socio-​political life through their autonomous organizations and spaces. A key example of grassroots mobilization is the Jinwar women’s commune, which was set up in Dirbesiye in 2018. On a once-​ barren 4-​acre land, 20 families of women and children have collectively set up dozens of houses, an academy for adults (Jinwar Akademi), a kindergarten (Dayika Xweş, Beautiful Mother), a bakery (Aş Nan, Flour Bread), a shop (Dukana Xwe Me, Our Shop), a sickbay (Şifa Jin, Women’s Cure), a kitchen, a garden, a barn (Xana Pez, Sheep House), a media office, a playground, a swimming pool, and a security hut to not only provide for their own needs in a sustainable way but also to show solidarity with neighboring villages. The Women’s Commune of Jinwar I visited Rojava for two months during the summer of 2019 and conducted 40 semi-​structured, face-​to-​face, and in-​depth interviews with members of DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-10

Seeds of another world  141 communes and cooperatives in 14 different towns. I employed the participant observation method and used snowball sampling and met most of the interviewees after my arrival in Rojava, and conducted on-​site interviews in Kurdish, Turkish, English, and Arabic. I had first heard about Jinwar online but had never been there and did not have any existing contacts from the village. For networking purposes, I attended a conference on the fight against ISIS on my second day in Rojava and met a few Kurdish women guerrilla fighters there. I described my research project to them, expressed my desire to visit Jinwar, and they gave me the contact information of Heval2 Nimet, who is the founding member of the commune. Over the phone, Heval Rumet gave me a warm welcome and told me that I could catch a ride with five Italian feminists who were scheduled to visit Jinwar in a week. We arrived at Jinwar on a hot and dry afternoon in mid-​July and were greeted by Heval Rumet and a few other commune members. Upon our arrival, everybody did a round of introductions over some tea and cigarettes. I described my research project and scheduled three interviews for the following day: one with the founding member Heval Rumet, one with the local member Heval Fatma, and one with the internationalist volunteer Heval Belcem. I spent the late afternoon walking around the village, taking photos, and chatting with commune members and their children. Men are not allowed to marry into the village or spend the night there, so the family of a young man doing construction work at Jinwar hosted me at night in their nearby village. Seeing the villages neighboring Jinwar gave me the perspective to realize that members of Jinwar have created a green oasis of life and hope in the midst of a war-​torn desert. With a focus on Jinwar, I will explore in this chapter how micro acts of solidarity and resistance –​particularly those by women –​enable communities to shape present politics with elements of a desired future. In his 2012 book Territories in Resistance: A Cartography of Latin American Social Movements, Raul Zibechi identifies seven main trends in contemporary social movements in  Latin America, which can also be described as the characteristics of prefigurative movements in the 21st century. These trends are horizontality, autonomy, gender equality, ecologism, affect, education, and territorialization (Zibechi, 2012, p. 13), which can all be found in the case of Rojava. I will add the organization of self-​defense as an eighth characteristic and use the trends identified by Zibechi as a guide in our exploration of Jinwar commune, whose collective action relies on everyday acts of resistance and solidarity. Horizontalism Horizontalism is the refusal of vertical political organizing and can be described as a decision-​making process that rejects hierarchy and produces egalitarian relationships (Sitrin, 2012, p. 3). Participants of horizontal movements relate to one another non-​hierarchically, have an equal say in the organization of their everyday lives, and become protagonists (as opposed to objects) of collective action. Horizontal councils of decision-​making spread across Rojava through

142  Emre Sahin PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s concept of Democratic Confederalism, which can be described as a direct-​democratic, pluralist, anti-​capitalist, anti-​statist, and consensus-​oriented political system (Öcalan, 2015, p. 25). Inspired by the US anarchist thinker Murray Bookchin’s ideas on communalism (Bookchin, 2001, p. 8), Öcalan sought for the establishment of people’s assemblies at different levels and counter the hegemony of nation states in Western Asia. Popular structures of direct democracy in Rojava are organized on four different levels: street, neighborhood, district, and regional (Ayboğa et al., 2016, p. 63). Street assemblies, also known as peoples’ houses (malan gel), consist of 30 to 400+​households. Each street assembly has one male and one female coordinator, and the coordinators of such assemblies ranging from 7 to 30 in number come together to make up the second level of grassroots organizing: the neighborhood councils. Similarly, coordinators of neighborhood councils come together at the district council and the coordinators of district councils make up the regional assembly (Dirik, 2019). The goal of the council system in Rojava is to maximize local power and decentralize while achieving a required degree of regional communication and coordination. All decisions from the “upper” councils must be formally adopted by the “lower” councils in order to be binding for their constituents. At each of the four levels, commissions exist in the following eight areas: politics, economics, defense, women, justice, ideology, civil society, and free society. Each of these commissions has two spokespersons: one woman and one man. Women’s councils are different than the women’s commissions that exist at the street, neighborhood, district, and regional levels and constitute a parallel and autonomous structure. Primarily, women participate in socio-​political life and mixed-​gender spaces through commissions, whereas they consolidate their collective political agency and determine their policy positions in women-​only councils. The horizontal organization of and decision-​making at Jinwar is most visible at the commune assembly, where members come together at biweekly council meetings called Şewr to coordinate life at the village. Communers distribute the different responsibilities ranging from baking bread to watchduty at the security hut among themselves on a horizontal, rotational, and voluntary basis. The collective running of the village increases the agency and political subjecthood of Jinwar members because all decisions are taken together, and every member is directly involved in decision-​making processes: Heval Nimet: The political system of Jinwar is based on an assembly where each incoming member is welcomed and housed until more permanent settlement. Our assembly holds general advisory meetings that we call Şewr once every two weeks. Daily life is organized collectively and village members inform each other about the activities they had been carrying out in that time period. It is also a place where we have rounds of criticism and self-​criticism in order to strengthen ourselves. We discuss the education and care of our children, ecological developments, and the workings of the academy, infirmary, shop, bakery, school, and diplomacy unit during these

Seeds of another world  143 assembly meetings. We make decisions and finalize our planning for the next two weeks in the light of these assembly debates. Each woman living here participates in at least one area of activity. For example, some are responsible for the primary school where we offer language and computer education. Some friends are responsible for the shop while others run the bakery. Some are responsible for construction while others take care of the gardens and fields. Furthermore, the rotational aspect of division of labor serves an educational purpose and increases the skills and capabilities of each village resident: Heval Nimet: We have a rotation system here and each woman gets a new responsibility once a month, enabling the sharing of experiences and diversification of skills. Each woman knows how to take care of livestock or bake bread now. We know that the activities here can be difficult at times so we do not overload members with too much responsibility. We cannot make the revolution all of a sudden here! 😊 There may be setbacks at times, the bread may burn or machines can break down. No problem! What matters is the attempt to learn and do new things. Women work here on the basis of solidarity without competition. The biweekly planning meetings at Jinwar are complemented by monthly general and reporting (tekmil) meetings. In the general meetings, members share updates on and discuss recent political developments in the region. The tekmil meetings are spaces of self-​reflection, where everyone takes turns to report on what they have been doing in recent weeks and share the difficulties they may have had: Heval Belcem: There is the big general meeting on the 15th of each month and then there is the other one at the end of the month which is tekmil style. In the general meetings we discuss the political situation in the region and share news. Then members take turns to share their own situation and the difficulties they may have. We discuss what we have done and there is place for critique and self-​critique. Tasks are organized and shared in the meetings. Each woman or group of women has their own tasks for the month … Now I have different tasks such as diplomacy, public relations and so on. There is a lot of kids at Jinwar and with my own initiative I give English and Computer classes. We also have Physical Education and Art classes. Currently I am also responsible for watering the many trees. Heval Nimet is a PKK cadre that spent two decades in mountains across Kurdistan before settling in Rojava. The role Heval Nimet plays as Jinwar’s founding member presents us with a dual-​power scenario that is prevalent throughout Rojava. The assembly network in the region decentralizes and collectivizes decision-​making processes, whereas PKK cadres and/​or AANES3

144  Emre Sahin officials serve as organizational guides in these processes. Heval Fatma, a local member of Jinwar who moved to the village soon after her husband died in the fight against ISIS in 2018, describes Heval Nimet’s role in Jinwar as: Heval Fatma: She gives us trainings to strengthen our will and abilities. Maybe we would be scared and want to leave the village without these trainings. One little example, every woman here now knows how to put out fires effectively. Maybe we would be scared in the past and die because of a fire, but we now know how to be calm and put out a fire effectively. Members of Jinwar often use the analogy of a volleyball team to describe the horizontality of power relations and decision-​making processes at their commune. Every volleyball team is made up of players who specialize in a task such as passing or blocking, but players rotate positions and perform tasks other than their specialty throughout a game. Similarly, women at Jinwar take care of their village and increase their individual capabilities collectively: Heval Fatma: In the village, mothers do not keep their children at home all the time. Care for children is communal. I am not responsible only for my children. When life gets too stressful at home, I visit my neighbors and find some peace. I sit down and relax with Heval Rumet and others. When it comes to responsibilities, people do not give orders to others and take up initiatives instead. Every month, four women run the bakery. Two women run the communal kitchen. But of course, these numbers are not rigid and if there is extra help needed somewhere, other village members come to help. If someone falls sick, others fill in. Autonomy Another common characteristic of prefigurative movements is autonomy. Participants of prefigurative movements seek autonomy from the state, the global market, and political parties. If horizontalism is the principle of operating through egalitarian relationships within a movement, autonomy can be described as the principle of relating to and operating with other movements, parties, and institutions on a non-​hierarchical and egalitarian basis. Although the results and the aftermath of the civil war in Syria remain to be seen, the autonomous administration in Rojava has been enjoying a high degree of autonomy from the central Syrian state since 2012. Rojava’s autonomy from central state control has enabled the emergence and consolidation of political agencies that are collective, anti-​patriarchal, and revolutionary: Heval Fatma: We built our free life here and began to take care of each other without the influence or authority of anyone! If I want to go to a workshop or training, it is my decision. This is my life, whether people accept it or not! Now I have gotten used to the village life here, I do not want to go back to

Seeds of another world  145 the city life! … In this village, we have all sorts of women’s stories. Each woman has experienced death in some way, and finds acceptance here. We have trainings and discussions here, as well as love and care. We are learning to believe in ourselves here. We are building an autonomous life here. Jinwar also enjoys autonomy from the global market and its neoliberal operations, and this is made possible by its material capacity to preserve itself (Zibechi, 2012, p. 15). Embargoed by all but one of its neighbors, Rojava has been disconnected from the global market and is forced to rely on its own local production for subsistence. Agriculture and oil extraction are the two largest segments of Western Kurdistan’s isolated economy, and most of the production in these fields is used for internal consumption. Jinwar’s autonomy from the global market does not simply stem from the Rojava’s international isolation, but is maintained through the anti-​capitalist economic principles that are at work in the region. Some examples of these anti-​capitalist principles are the introduction of collective property, the strict ban on monopolies in all sectors, and the dissemination of collective ways of production and distribution (such as cooperatives) in order to reduce economic inequalities across the region: Heval Carcel: At its core, what we are trying to do here today is to balance out the free market economy and our peoples’ economy. If we accomplish this, we will not need to do long-​term plans like those nation states do. There will not be the need for precautionary reports because organized cooperatives and people will stand up against any effort that will harm nature or establish monopolies. They will become a political force in and of themselves. Our economic efforts here must transform into peoples’ political power. Otherwise, the administration will have the political power and the final say. We must expand the local network of cooperatives in order to prevent this from happening. This is the logic of our peoples’ economy. What distinguishes Jinwar from the mixed-​gender communes in Rojava is its autonomy from the AANES itself. Although all communes and cooperatives in Rojava enjoy a degree of autonomy from the AANES’s semi-​central political jurisdiction, women’s-​only organizations have a higher level of autonomy and function as semi-​independent political units. Before moving onto the following section on gender equality and women’s autonomous mobilization in Rojava, let us take a look at Heval Nimet’s description of Jinwar’s autonomy within Rojava: Heval Nimet: As you know we have the canton system here. Each canton has a network of smaller administrative units, as well as inter-​canton networks among them. If a village wants to establish relations with another canton, it consults with its own canton first. Jinwar is an autonomous model that is exempt from this and establishes ties with all cantons and even countries nearby. It is sort of semi-​independent! … Women made

146  Emre Sahin a revolution here at the trenches. But what do these women do after the trenches? They go home and organize the social life here. The need for women’s autonomous spaces emerged at this point, spaces that would feed the egalitarian and libertarian paradigm of Democratic Modernity and Democratic Confederalism. Gender Equality Women’s liberation and gender equality have perhaps been the aspects of Rojava revolution that have gathered the most attention internationally in recent years. Fighters of the all-​women Women’s Protection Units (Yekitiya Parastina Jin, YPJ) decorated the front pages of many Western media outlets as the world witnessed the emergence of a political agency in the Middle East that is collective, gendered, and revolutionary. However, this Western interest in Kurdish women’s mobilization was limited to the military sphere and overlooked their social, political, and economical organization. In accordance with their principle of autonomous mobilization, Kurdish women have been setting up women-​only spaces and organizations at all levels. What makes the case of women’s parallel autonomous organizing across Rojava even more unique is that the right to parallel autonomous organizing is reserved for women, and men cannot form men-​only organizations at any level of mobilization in the region: Heval Nimet: As Middle Eastern women, we were basically given two choices, you either get a job or get married after growing up or finishing school. What is certain is that you do not stay in your family home or live a life without men. How can one life without either of these choices? This is a situation where one defies social norms. Is there a third option? Yes, it is when you seek socialism and a democratic life based on women’s realities … As a woman, you have to put up a fight if you want to make your own decisions and live life accordingly. As a woman, your fight has to be at least twice as strong as that of a man when it comes to living, working and thinking on your own … Here [at Jinwar], we saw that women express themselves best in their own living spaces where their dreams are materialized. These places are not where women’s brothers, fathers or husbands reside because they are instruments of oppression. In addition to autonomous mobilization, women have introduced the principles of co-​presidency and the gender quota to all mixed-​gender groups and organizations operating within the Kurdish movement. Accordingly, every popular structure of direct democracy, board, committee, and even meeting must have two co-​presidents: one woman and one man. Similarly, women in the Kurdish movement introduced the quota system which requires the members of every committee and organization –​except for women’s parallel autonomous structures –​to be at least 40% male and 40% female. Heval Carcel, a

Seeds of another world  147 coordinator at the regional Economy Ministry (Abori), describes the significance of the gender quota and co-​presidency principles in Rojava as: Heval Carcel: We must improve women’s work conditions and implement social projects. We must implement the gender quota in work spaces and ensure women’s access to decision-​making in economical activities. These are the focus of our economical work in the near future. Women are already participating in co-​ops and working as co-​spokespeople and administrators. However, there are many women that are still outside the cooperative system, working or staying at home. We need to make sure that these women take part in collective production and feel economically secure. In his 2013 book Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan describes women’s oppression as “the oldest colonial phenomenon” (Öcalan, 2013, p. 35) and argues that all political projects today must address patriarchal domination and organize accordingly in order to be truly emancipatory and transformative. Similarly, Kurdish women describe Rojava revolution as a women’s revolution and continuously expand their network of prefigurative mobilization as they consolidate their gendered and revolutionary collective agency. With its organizational principles of horizontality, autonomy, and gender equality, Jinwar constitutes the seed of a prefigurative future not only in Rojava but across the globe: Heval Nimet: Jinwar is like a drop of water leading this [Rojava’s] transformation. It has become a model for the region. Historically, women would go back to their kitchens at the end of revolutions. Some revolutions succeeded in changing the economy but not the family. Gender relations were left unchanged. Revolutions are bound to fail if the ethics and politics of the society and the individual do not complement each other. Ecologism Ecologism is another important principle that guides mobilization across Rojava today. Concerned by the on-​going ecological catastrophe and global warming, members of the Kurdish movement have prioritized the protection and sustenance of Rojava’s ecology at all costs. Ecological concerns were reconceptualized as central guiding principles of economical reorganization as opposed to limitations on capital accumulation, as they are often viewed in the neoliberal market. Rojava’s Social Contract identifies all natural resources –​above and under ground –​as collective property, as opposed to public or private property (Rojava Social Contract, 2014). This principle in turn helps prevent the destruction of these resources, as well as Rojava’s ecology overall. Furthermore, the “Peoples’ Economy Plan” introduced in Rojava in 2012 calls for all economic activities in the region to be ecologically sound and responsible.

148  Emre Sahin With his concept of “social ecology,” US-​based scholar Murray Bookchin played a key role in the rise of ecologism in Rojava. In his 1982 book The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy, Bookchin argues that ecological problems are caused by human social problems and can only be solved by reorganizing our societies among ecological and ethical lines. Here, the concept of social ecology not only provides a critique of the split between humanity and nature but also poses the need to heal the two (Bookchin, 1982, p. 22). Interviewee Heval Emin from the Ministry of Economics in Heseke addressed this split between humans and nature in the following way: Heval Emin: All people are part of nature and not the other way around. In today’s system, nature is being sacrificed for five percent of humans due to the ambition for maximum profits. Bookchin’s call for the reorganization of our societies through the principle of social ecology has been received well in Rojava, where food production is de-​industrialized and hundreds of agricultural communes and collectives form the basis of the region’s food sovereignty. Agriculture is the largest economic sector in the region, and communes organize their agricultural activities through a critical ecological rationale. Women at Jinwar are decreasing their dependence on fossil fuel energy sources as they expand their network of solar panels. They refrain from using all types of GMO products and are even attentive to the impact of pesticides on the acidity level of their land: Heval Nimet: We use natural fertilizers such as cow, sheep, goat and even pigeon manure. We do not use pesticides since they corrupt the soil by reducing its humidity and saltiness. Instead, we use duck and pigeon manure because it burns some harmful weeds that grow in the field. We rest cow, sheep and goat manure for about a year before using it so that the seeds in the manure grow and get ready for removal before the manure’s application. This technique also reduces the acid level of the manure as rainwater pushes out extra acidity. Affect Concepts of affect, meaning, friendship, and camaraderie were mostly overlooked in the analyses of social movement researchers in the 20th century. Instead, many scholars focused on resources and political opportunities as the determinants of social mobilization (Tarrow, 2005, p. 56). However, collective action is as much a contest over meaning as it is a struggle over resources and political opportunities. Affect plays a crucial role in the ways we perceive our world and helps explain how and why people participate in collective action, particularly if they can benefit from this action without participating in it or if they perceive their potential participation as too costly.

Seeds of another world  149 In her dissertation, Delal Aydın argues that the participants of the Kurdish movement have long formed strong friendship relations called “hevaltî” where they imagined and experienced revolutionary possibilities (Aydın, 2019, p. 125). According to Aydın, camaraderie provided an invaluable ground for the collective formation of self-​craft, mutual aid, and solidarity. In their friendships, members of the Kurdish movement appreciated the worth of each other as unique individuals and recognized each other as valuable beings. Aydın argues that this form of recognition enabled movement members to craft themselves as political subjects who believe in their power to bring change. As Raul Zibechi puts it, “they work for the re-​valorization of the culture and the affirmation of the identity of their people and social sectors” (Zibechi, 2012, p. 16): Heval Nimet: Wherever women are, the strength of their ideas can overcome any difficulty if they trust, respect and –​on the basis of social measures –​ love each other. Jinwar can be created in every environment where those ideas are created. We named our space in Kurdish, but in other parts of the world they may be named in different languages. What matters is that women can create their own living spaces based on their dreams and willpower. This has always been our goal and we are ready to support and show solidarity with women from any part of the world at any time. We have a website and social media platforms for communication and solidarity with the outside world. We trust in women, we love women. The consolidation of a collective political agency goes hand in hand with increasing intra-​group solidarity and care and paves the way for revolutionary possibilities and transformation. Members of Jinwar are able to counter the alienation that is inherent in Capitalist Modernity through the valorization of their gendered collective identity and labor. Through their collective agency and capabilities, they reclaim their power and are no longer held back by feelings of despair and isolation: Heval Fatma: We learned how to run Jinwar without outside help. We rely on the strength of women! Women with their own lives, children, and village. Like I said, this life comes with its burdens and beauties. For example, we get together and decide to go to the field nearby lets say at 5 pm. Lets say its too hot there and we get exhausted, we take a break and start singing songs together! We can go like this all the way into the night! :) When you live like this, work becomes less burdensome. Education In Territories in Resistance, Raul Zibechi argues that prefigurative movements are taking education into their own hands and employing criteria inspired by popular education. This has been the case in Rojava, where the Arab-​nationalist

150  Emre Sahin education system of the Syrian state has been replaced with a model of popular education that is multi-​lingual and critical. Kurdish, Arab, Syriac, Turkmen, and Armenian communities all have access to education in their mother tongue and autonomous control over their schools. Echoing Paulo Freire’s ideas on critical pedagogy outlined in his 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, educators across Rojava minimize hierarchy inside classrooms and reposition themselves as facilitators of debate as opposed to transmitters of knowledge. Instead of treating their students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, they relate to students as co-​creators of knowledge. This approach  acknowledges students’ agency in education and complements the training of organic intellectuals in Kurdish society. For organic intellectuals, education must serve the interests of the masses and have the purpose of defying hegemonic rule (Gramsci, 1999, p. 135). These intellectuals appear among popular sectors and are armed with new types of knowledge and capacities that facilitate self-​organization. Jineologists are excellent examples of the growing group of organic intellectuals in Rojava, who have introduced Jineology as a critical interdisciplinary field of social sciences and facilitate the self-​organization of women in the region. Kurdish women introduced the field of “Jineology” to social and natural sciences and have been at the forefront of rethinking theory and practice in Rojava through a feminist perspective. In Kurdish, “jin” means woman so the word “Jineology” translates as “the science of women” or “women’s science.” Through their mobilization inside the Kurdish movement, women across Kurdistan began to focus on how patriarchical domination impacted the development of social and natural sciences and emphasized the need to rethink the gendered histories of these sciences. In response, they coined the term “Jineology” as a new, critical, interdisciplinary, and intersectional field of social and natural sciences. Since their recent emergence in the 21st century, “Jineologists” have been providing a historical critique of not only patriarchy but also modernity, power structures, capitalism, racism, homophobia, and ecological destruction across the world: Heval Nimet: [Jineology is] the scientific research of women’s realities that have been removed from history and science … Positivist science and theory takes political ideology or the worker as its center, anarchism takes the fight against the state. They differ in their approaches to oppression. Jineology takes women as its center and applies it to different areas of life to understand and transform in a way that includes women. History and sciences have always been done by men for the eyes of other men. Jineology introduces the role of women into all of these areas. Jineology provides the theoretical framework of education inside Jinwar commune, where members have created an academy for adults and a kindergarten for children. Both of these schools are collectively operated and members receive trainings at the former while teaching classes at the latter:

Seeds of another world  151 Heval Fatma: As free women, we are participating in Jineology trainings. For me, Jinwar has become something else now. If you offered me a life in Europe now, as many refugees are seeking, I would say no. I would not leave this place. Here, women can prove themselves and stand on their own feet. Heval Belcem: As international friends we are a part of the village and members of the council, like all women here. We meet two times per week and all the tasks are communally discussed and organized. Now I have different tasks such as diplomacy, public relations and so on. There is a lot of kids at Jinwar and with my own initiative I give English and Computer classes. Members of Jinwar do not have an isolationist approach to education and deliver trainings at nearby villages and academies in order to transform daily life there: Heval Hevi: Actually, Jineology has its own academy but we [the Jineology group] give trainings in all academies across Rojava. We offer Jineology trainings in mixed-​gender education academies as well as all-​male military academies. We have no restrictions when it comes to education. Middle and high school students receive Jineology courses across the region. Some schools are mixed-​gender and some are not, but Jineology courses are offered in all types of schools. Our trainings aim to raise question marks in the minds of both the instructors and the participants. We have Jineology trainings in all academies in fields ranging from the economy to the press. Furthermore, they emphasize the relevance of Jineology for feminist movements across the world and call for more collaboration with them: Heval Belcem: Jineology can be used by feminists in Europe and the West where there is intersectional feminism, black feminism, liberal feminism, anarchofeminism etc. I think Jineology can be a really good connection point for all these struggles. This applies not only to Jineology but also to Democratic Confederalism and Rojava revolution. Territorialization Territorialization refers to the locational groundedness of prefigurative movements, where new social relationships are produced through affective politics. One can unpack the concept of territorialization as having roots in spaces that have been recuperated or otherwise secured through long struggles (Zibechi, 2012, p. 14). According to Zibechi, the de-​territorialization of production in the neoliberal era debilitated subjects that were part of disappearing territorialities in which they had previously acquired power and meaning. This in turn led to the reconfiguration of physical space and the relocation of

152  Emre Sahin popular sectors into new territories. From these territories, actors of prefigurative movements consolidated long-​term projects, most notably the capacity to produce and reproduce life. The word “Rojava” is often used to describe Western Kurdistan: the Kurdish-​majority parts of North and East Syria. Territorialization has also been the case in Rojava since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2012. Syrian president Bashar al-​Assad withdrew his forces from Rojava in order to concentrate his fight against the Syrian Islamist opposition in and around Idlib. AANES quickly filled in this power vacuum and established territorial control in an area that is larger than Belgium. Over the next few years, it expanded its control to Arab-​majority areas such as Raqqa and Deir ez Zor. Today, Rojava spans across a third of Syrian territory, and territorial rootedness lies at the core of life’s reorganization in the region: Heval Carcel: Rojava is our only site of practice. We are experimenting our projects and methods, with their successes and failures, in Rojava for the first time. It is our land and country but we are governing ourselves for the first time! It is perhaps the first time Kurds are governing themselves in the past century. Prefigurative movements’ territoriality poses a direct challenge to the hegemony of nation-​states, and requires the reconfiguration of self-​defense in these areas. This became more clear with the attack Turkish soldiers and ISIS sleeper cells carried out on January 2022 in Heseke where more than a hundred civilians died, thousands of families were forced to migrate, and half a million people lost their access to water. Let us now take a look at self-​defense in Rojava and its decentralized and autonomous organization. Self-​Defense Not listed by Raul Zibechi, self-​ defense is another trend in prefigurative mobilizing in the 21st century. States and elites often view prefigurative movements as a threat to their own interests and use violence to repress such mobilization. Therefore, self-​defense becomes a crucial component of prefigurative movements’ survival and continuity. Similar to other aspects of political, economical, and social life, military organization is pluralistic and decentralized in Rojava. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were established in 2015 and function as the umbrella military organization for all the different armed groups operating across Rojava. In addition to Kurdish women and men, members of different ethnic and religious groups are represented in the SDF. Although these groups are subgroups of the SDF, they have autonomous control and represent different segments of Rojava society. Women are mobilized autonomously inside the SDF through the Women’s Protection Units (Yekitiya Parastina Jin, YPJ), which make up a third of the nearly 100,000 SDF fighters.

Seeds of another world  153 Surrounded by ISIS sleeper cells and the Turkish and Syrian states, Jinwar has been the target of multiple artillery shellings and sabotage fires since its inception. Members of Jinwar have put up a fence around the village and a security hut at the entrance in order to protect themselves from external hostilities. Communers take turns to perform guard duty at the hut each month and train each other on gun usage and maintenance. Women’s collective self-​ defense at Jinwar also shields them from gender-​based violence still prevalent across Rojava. As Heval Hevi points out, strong women that can protect themselves threaten the foundations of patriarchy because having recovered their power, they no longer have to enter men’s patronage: Heval Hevi: The main philosophy of Jinwar is to have a space in which women can live self-​sufficiently. Women plan their security and this is something men have viewed as a nightmare until today. Perhaps women could not have imagined it either. Many of the women there have experienced violence and struggled finding their own space in society. They recover their own power and sustain their lives without entering men’s patronage. The residents of Rojava have been transforming their social, political, and economical lives in accordance with Abdullah Öcalan’s model of Democratic Confederalism since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2012. Through their autonomous organizations in all aspects of life, women have been at the forefront of this transformation and expand prefigurative mobilization across Rojava. Anti-​hierarchical and popular structures of direct democracy such as councils, communes, and cooperatives drive social mobilization and political decentralization. Regular planning and reporting meetings ensure a collective division of labor that increases participants’ capacities. Autonomy from the Syrian state, the global market, and political parties rests upon the consolidation of collective, gendered, and revolutionary political agencies as well as Rojava’s material capacity to provide its own subsistence. Principles of quotas, co-​presidency, and women’s parallel-​autonomous further gender equality and increase social harmony. The adoption of Bookchin’s social-​ ecological perspective (Bookchin, 1982) and redesignation of natural resources under and above ground as collective property reflect the ecologist aspects of Rojava’s revolutionary transformation. The popularization of affective politics increases in-​group solidarity and gives rise to collective political subjecthoods such as “heval” that are revolutionary. Through Rojava’s territoriality and physical space, members of the Kurdish movement have been able to consolidate long-​term projects and reproduce life. The decentralized and pluralist nature of self-​defense under the umbrella of the SDF ensure the Kurdish movement’s territoriality and autonomy in Rojava. With all of these qualities, Jinwar constitutes the seed of a prefigurative future not only in Rojava but across the globe. Echoing Zapatista commander Marcos’ sentiment of making the revolutionary road by walking, women of Rojava politicize emotions and overcome dogmatism one step at a time:

154  Emre Sahin Heval Nimet: What is a revolution? Do revolutionary processes ever end? Ours is not a normal revolution, it is an ethical and political revolution. It is the revolution of mobilizing the individual and helping her get to know herself. It is the revolution of politicizing emotions. It is the revolution of overcoming dogmatism. This revolution does not end. We made progress in the military and political fronts. Women’s revolution is on the march! Notes 1 “Rojava” means “West” in Kurdish and refers to Western Kurdistan (North and East Syria). Most Kurds use the names of Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western Kurdistan to refer to the parts occupied by Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian, respectively. 2 Hevaltî means both friendship and camaraderie in Kurdish, and Kurdish movement members often use the word Heval (friend, comrade) to refer to each other in daily life. 3 The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rêveberiya Xweser a Bakur û Rojhilatê Sûriyeyê, AANES) is a leadership structure that operates across Rojava and includes a Legislative Council resembling a parliament and an Executive Council resembling a government. The decision-​making that AANES exercises can be described as semi-​central, where local assemblies reserve the right to influence and/​or veto the decisions made by the AANES.

References Ayboğa, Ercan et al. Revolution in Rojava: Democratic autonomy and women’s liberation in the Syrian Kurdistan. London: Pluto Press, 2016. Aydın, Delal, Self-​craft of the Kurdish youth in the shadow of the Turkish state: The formation of Yurtsever subjectivity in the 1990s. Unpublished dissertation, 2019. Bookchin, Murray, The ecology of freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Palo Alto: Cheshire Books, 1982. Bookchin, Murray, What is communalism? The democratic dimension of anarchism. 2001 Retrieved 17 February 2022 from http://​dward​mac.pit​zer.edu/​ana​rchi​st_​a​rchi​ ves/​bookc​hin/​cmm​nl2.mcw.html Dirik, Dilar, Building democracy without a state. Roar Magazine, Issue 1, 2019. Retrieved 17 February 2022 from https://​roar​mag.org/​magaz​ine/​build​ing-​democr​ acy-​with​out-​a-​state/​ Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: ElecBook, 1999. Holloway, John, Change the world without taking power. London and Michigan: Pluto, 2002. Maeckelbergh, Marianne, Doing is believing: Prefiguration as strategic practice in the Alterglobalization Movement. Social Movement Studies 10: 1, 1–​20, 2011. Öcalan, Abdullah, Liberating life: Women’s revolution. Cologne: International Initiative Edition, 2013. Öcalan, Abdullah, Democratic confederalism. London, Cologne: Transmedia Publishing, 2015.

Seeds of another world  155 Rojava Social Contract. (2014). Retrieved 17 February 2022 from https://​inte​rnat​iona​ list​comm​une.com/​soc​ial-​contr​act/​ Sitrin, Marina, Everyday revolutions: Horizontalism and autonomy in Argentina. London and New York: Zed, 2012. Tarrow, Sydney, “States and opportunities: The political structuring of social movements.” in Comparative perspectives on social movements. Eds. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Zibechi, Raul, Territories in resistance: A cartography of Latin American social movements. Edinburgh, Oakland, and Baltimore: AK Press, 2012.

11 Resisting (everyday) racism on social media Analysing responses to the 2018 Mary Beard Twitterstorm Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly Introduction Hashtag activists increasingly use online platforms like Twitter to document and resist the racism experienced by people of colour (PoC). Research indicates that this form of activism can facilitate the large-​scale informal learning, that is, the learning takes place outside traditional educational environments among conservatives about racial injustice; most notably, Black Lives Matter (BLM) hashtags led many Conservatives to recognise police brutality towards PoC in the United States for the first time (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016, p. 79). While this might be considered prima facie evidence of how online platforms, Twitter in particular, facilitate everyday acts of resistance that challenge racial injustice, those who speak out about these issues are often subject to racist abuse themselves. Indeed, the affordances of online platforms, combined with generally ineffectual regulatory mechanisms for cyber hate, have been linked to a new genre of “platformed racism” on these sites (Matamoros-​Fernandez, 2018). This chapter adds to the literature on how social media are used to resist everyday racism by exploring the Mary Beard Twitterstorm in the UK. The Cambridge scholar was the subject of much criticism for a tweet she posted about the sexual misconduct of Oxfam workers in Haiti in February 2018, which suggested they might have struggled to “sustain civilised values” working in a disaster zone (Beard, 2018a). Critics, including her Cambridge colleague Dr. Priya Gopal, condemned Beard for perpetuating whiteness in the tweet. The study constituted the first empirical analysis of the Twitterstorm, which was widely reported in legacy media organisations at the time. This chapter is structured as follows: First, an overview of the Twitterstorm is provided. Second, it examines the rise of platformed racism on sites like Twitter. Finally, it presents the results of a qualitative content analysis of 1718 tweets mentioning “Mary Beard,” posted between 16 and 20 February 2018. The Mary Beard Twitterstorm In order to contextualise the study, one must first understand the context in which Beard’s tweet was posted. Reports of the sexual misconduct of DOI: 10.4324/9781003265337-11

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  157 Oxfam aid workers in Haiti first appeared in The Times on 9 February 2018, with witnesses reporting that the group of men had thrown parties involving sex workers (O’Neill, 2018; BBC, 2018). Critics condemned the colonial attitudes of humanitarian non-​governmental organisations like Oxfam and the “white saviour complex” of the aid workers implicated in the scandal (Hirsch, 2018). Professor Mary Beard’s take on the scandal, while not condoning the behaviour of these men, appeared to offer a mitigation for their actions: Of course one can’t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain “civilized” values in a disaster zone. And overall I still respect those who go in to help out, where most of us wd [sic] not tread. (Beard, 2018a) Dr. Priya Gopal was quick to respond to Beard’s tweet, suggesting it was symptomatic of the “genteel and patrician casual racism passing as frank and well-​meaning observations” she had experienced in Cambridge (Gopal, 2018a). This triggered a highly polarised debate about whiteness in which supporters of Beard defended her from the “pile on” from critics who accused her of defending the aid workers for their sexual misconduct. These arguments were repeated in legacy media. Right-​leaning newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph mocked Gopal’s suggestion that the “national treasure” (Beard) was perpetuating “genteel and patrician casual racism” in her tweet (D’Ancona, 2018). Meanwhile, an op-​ed in The Guardian congratulated Beard and Gopal for being “combative, rigorous and respectful” to each other (Ramaswamy, 2018). Significantly, the newspaper coverage focused more on whether Beard merited criticism for her tweet, than the underlying issue of whiteness raised by the Twitterstorm. Defining colourblind racism and whiteness Beard’s reference to “civilized values” in her controversial tweet was arguably symptomatic of the pervasive “white insidious racism” in the UK during the past 50 years (Eddo Lodge, 2017). Whiteness is a social construct originally conceived as a tool to “stabilize and organize colonial society by establishing poor white workers and farmers as a control stratum over the black bond-​laborers working the plantations” (Martinot, 2010, p. 16). This operationalisation of racial differences has continued throughout the post-​ Second World War period; in the 1950s, the immigration policies of the UK government were designed to “close the door to dark skinned migrants while keeping it open to ‘whites’ ” (Mason, 2000, p. 29). This frame has been deployed by both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in their coverage of immigration over the past six decades (Madood, 2014). The Vote Leave campaign’s narrow victory in the 2016 UK Referendum on the European Union (also known

158  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly as Brexit) further exacerbated racial tensions, contributing to a significant increase in the number of recorded hate crimes against EU citizens and ethnic minorities (Rzepnikowksa, 2018). Brexit highlighted the endemic racism in the UK which remains largely under-​ reported by the news media. The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAA) found that the level of racial prejudice amongst the total population had remained unchanged since the 1980s, with approximately 25 percent of the population describing themselves as racially prejudiced (NatCen, 2017). A related issue is the rise of colourblind racism, the phenomenon where whites insist they “see people, not color,” and deploy “sincere fictions” to explain how PoC are poorly treated compared to whites (Bonilla-​Silva, 2017, p. 2). These practices are typically more subtle than the blatantly discriminatory ones deployed by previous generations, such as quoting higher rents to prospective tenants from ethnic minority backgrounds (Bonilla-​Silva, 2017, p. 3). Whites learn how to hide their racial attitudes in public settings as they get older, with only the very prejudiced expressing their support for the old white racial frame (‘Jim Crow racism’) in the company of others (Feagin, 2013, p. 93). Colourblind racism is a flexible perspectival frame through which white privilege is sustained by racist structures; the phrase “I am not a racist” being a “discursive buffer” used to preface statements that are racially prejudiced (Bonilla-​Silva, 2017, p. 75). White people often find conversations about their privilege deeply unsettling. This is a form of “white fragility,” defined as the “discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice” (White Fragility, n.d.) Hence, women of colour (WoC) constantly express their disappointment at how white feminism’s support for minorities collapses when crises force them to choose between acting in their own interests and protecting those of marginalised groups (Romano, 2017). However, whiteness has often been operationalised by politicians for electoral advantage. The rise of the far-​right in countries such as the UK can be attributed to “methodological whiteness,” where the focus on white working-​class communities legitimises “analyses that might otherwise have been regarded as racist” (Bhambra, 2017, p. 214). For instance, the UK Government’s report on race and ethnic inequalities was heavily criticised for claiming that white working-​class pupils lagged behind their peers from almost all other ethnic minority groups (Bhopal, 2021). While the rhetoric of many right-​wing populist politicians is often inflammatory by nature, it is also shaped by the ideology of colourblind racism. For instance, President Trump repeatedly claimed he was “the least racist person” when challenged on the racial overtones of policies such as the ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries entering the US (Bonilla-​Silva, 2017, p. 222). The same criticism can be levelled at racially progressive political leaders who publicly proclaim their anti-​racist credentials while simultaneously seeking to preserve their cultural and ethnic dominance (Eddo-​Lodge, 2017). Overall, the structures of racial inequality have remained largely intact despite the efforts of racial progressives

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  159 and anti-​racist activists to focus attention on these manifestations of whiteness and white privilege. Can online spaces facilitate informal learning about whiteness? This chapter uses the Beard Twitterstorm to explore the extent to which Twitter facilitates everyday acts of resistance against racial injustice and colourblind racism in the UK. The early (cyber)optimism about “netizens” participating in online debates without fear of being judged by gender or race proved short-​ lived (Hughey & Daniels, 2013, p. 333). Rather than “offline” prejudices being replicated online, the affordances of information and communication technologies (ICTs) amplified such content (Hughey & Daniels, 2013). Platformed racism, a new form of racism linked to the design and affordances of social media platforms, was identified in the context of Twitter debates surrounding whiteness and indigenous cultures in Australia (Matamoros-​Fernandez, 2017). Hate speech has thrived on the microblogging site through the emojis, memes, and humour used by tweeters to negatively stereotype other cultures (Matamoros-​Fernandez, 2018). Fake Facebook pages have also been created in countries such as Denmark to promote antagonistic stereotypes of Muslims which frame them as a threat to the values of the “civilized West” (Farkas, Schou, & Neumayer, 2018, p. 477). The relative anonymity of online spaces, which was supposed to empower WoC, often exposes them to abuse from “trolls” (Amnesty, 2018). A potential barrier towards challenging racial injustice on sites like Twitter is the homogeneity and homophily of online social networks. However, despite concerns about “partisan echo chambers” or “filter bubbles,” the empirical evidence to date suggests that social media users are constantly exposed to alternative viewpoints on these platforms, with accidental exposure to news stories linked to enhanced political learning and participation (Bruns, 2019; Valeriani & Vaccari, 2016). Pertinent to this chapter, Twitter, in particular, has been found to help movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) focus attention on racial and social injustices. Hashtags such as #icantbreathe, which discursively framed discussions about the police killing of Eric Garner in July 2014, facilitated “large-​ scale informal learning” about tensions between the police and Black communities, particularly amongst conservatives who acknowledged for the first time that these killings were “unjust” (Freelon et al., 2016, p. 79). There has also been evidence of playful engagement with racism through seemingly flippant hashtags such as @WhiteProverbs, which was deployed by Australian anti-​racist activists to encourage citizens to reflect on their white privilege (Petray & Collin, 2017). While the impact of such activism should not be overstated, social media appears to provide spaces for difficult conversations about race and whiteness that are not available elsewhere. This paper will explore these issues through the Twitterstorm caused by Mary Beard’s controversial tweet about the “civilized values” of the Oxfam aid workers in Haiti.

160  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly Specifically, two research questions were investigated in this study: RQ1: What discourses emerged on Twitter in relation to Beard’s Oxfam tweet? RQ2: Was there any evidence of informal learning about whiteness among these tweeters? Sample Tweets containing “Mary Beard,” posted between 16 and 20 February 2018, were purchased from Sifter before being downloaded to text-​mining software package Discovertext for analysis. An Excel spreadsheet was used to record field notes for the analysis conducted in May 2018.1 The original corpus of 6,899 tweets was reduced to 6,436 after removing non-​English tweets, with§ seven unique tweets inaccessible to the researchers. This left a total of 6,429 tweets meeting the inclusion criteria, namely that they directly addressed the Beard controversy. The dataset consisted of 1,718 unique tweets (27 percent), 595 @replies to tweeters (9 percent), and 4,116 retweets/​modified tweets (64 percent). This was congruent with previous research, which suggested that as much as 65 percent of hashtagged tweets were retweets (Bruns, Moon, Paul, & Münch, 2016). Tweeters began discussing Mary Beard on 16 February, the date of her initial tweet (see Figure 11.1). There was a further “spike” on 17 February, when Dr. Priya Gopal posted a screenshot of the tweet alongside a comment confirming this was the “progressive end of the institutional culture” she experienced each day (Gopal, 2018b).

Figure 11.1 Number of tweets mentioning “Mary Beard,” 16–​20 February 2018.

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  161 In response to the Twitterstorm, Beard shared a link to her Times Literary Supplement (TLS) piece explaining her position (Beard, 2018b), as well as a photograph showing her crying in response to the criticism she had received for her original tweet. This was the point where professional journalists and politicians intervened to either support or criticise the scholar, as demonstrated by the peak on 18 February. Data analysis

Qualitative content analysis (QCA) was undertaken on the unique tweets in the corpus (N=​2313).2 This approach was congruent with previous studies of how contentious political issues are debated on Twitter (O’Loughlin et al., 2017). Latent meanings were clearly important here due to the hegemony of colourblind racism within societies like the UK. Congruent with previous research using QCA (Drisko & Maschi, 2015), a constructivist standpoint was utilised in this study. Both deductive and inductive codes were developed to ensure that tweeters’ opinions were adequately represented in the study. Each had categories and subcategories, the former referring to aspects where the researchers wanted more information, and the latter specifying what was said in the material about these main categories (Schreier, 2014, p. 174). An iterative process was employed for the QCA. The coding framework was piloted on 10 percent of the corpus before being finalised by the researchers and then deployed across the entire dataset. Once the initial coding had been completed, the tweets were re-​coded to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings. Ethics

Ethics approval was received from the host institution in April 2018. Due to the impracticalities of obtaining informed consent, non-​elite tweeters were afforded the maximum level of anonymity possible by paraphrasing their tweets and not identifying them by their Twitter handles. Unlike public figures such as academics, journalists, and politicians, they lacked the agency and power to respond to any potential reputational and emotional harm that might arise from their identification in academic outputs (Beninger, 2017). Public figures were identified, and their tweets reproduced verbatim where appropriate to do so, in accordance with the most recently published guidelines for online research (franzke, Bechmann, Zimmer, Ess, & Association of Internet Researchers, 2020). Beard is heavily criticised but public figures defend the “national treasure”

There were over twice as many unique tweets criticising Beard (36 percent) compared to those supporting her (16 percent) (Table 11.1). However, nearly a third of the corpus (30 percent) did not articulate a specific position on

162  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly Table 11.1 Views taken on Mary Beard during Twitterstorm

Supporting Beard Opposing Beard Neither Side Other

Number of Tweets

Percentage

385 839 687 409

16 36 30 18

Figure 11.2 Groups present in tweets supporting Beard.

the issues raised by the contentious tweet, with a further 18 percent coded as “Other” due to the fact that they had no obvious link to the Twitterstorm. Citizens accounted for most of those unique tweets (210 tweets, 54.5 percent) supporting Beard (see Figure 11.2). Political tweeters accounted for 55 of these tweets, including those who identified as expressed support for remaining in the EU in their bios and left-​wing accounts supporting the UK Labour Party and its then leader Jeremy Corbyn. It should be noted that 39 tweets were attributed to accounts that provided no bio information, making it difficult to establish the political beliefs of their authors. Beard’s supporters focused more on the Twitterstorm itself than the debate over whiteness sparked by her tweet. The majority of pro-​ Beard tweets (225, 58.4 percent) defended the Cambridge Professor from criticism, with many refuting claims she had demonstrated her white privilege and fragility through her posts on the Oxfam scandal (see Figure 11.3). There were three

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  163

Figure 11.3 Themes present in tweets supporting Beard.

times as many tweets offering Beard personal support (12) compared to those supporting her ideologically (40). Public figures were quick to portray Beard as a victim of her critics’ intolerance. Her plight was frequently characterised as yet another example of the misogynistic abuse experienced by women online: For instance, Channel 4 news correspondent Cathy Newman (2018) called for an improved “tenor” of debate to “prevent women being silenced.” There were also echoes of colourblind racism in posts claiming that Beard could not possibly be expressing racist views due to her status as a “national treasure.” For instance, historian David Olusoga (2018) called the suggestion that his “friend Mary” was “some form of neo-​colonialist” ridiculous, expressing his horror at the attacks she had received online. Such respect was rarely extended to academic colleagues like Gopal and Duong-​Pedica, who were criticised for suggesting that the Twitterstorm highlighted the whiteness that persisted in the UK. Indeed, a large number of these tweets (88, 22.85 percent) attacked her critics, followed by those encouraging a “pile on” by naming them (56) and those arguing that the tweet was ill-​judged but did not merit online abuse (34) (see Figure 11.4). The most shared URLs in the Pro-​Beard corpus included her TLS essay, in which she defended her controversial tweet but offered apologies for anybody offended by it (Beard, 2018c). Telegraph journalist Anne-​ Elisabeth Moutet (2018) tweeted that Beard deserved “support from the ferret-​faced little commissars of the New Orthodoxy” (presumably a reference to her left-​ wing critics), quote tweeting the “Response to Mary Beard” essay authored by Gopal (2018a). This illustrated how academic responses to the Beard

164  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly

Figure 11.4 Sub-​themes present in tweets supporting Beard.

controversy were “weaponized” by right-​learning journalists’ intent on making the Twitterstorm a “free speech issue,”, rather than an opportunity to learn about the legacy of the UK’s colonial past. Tweets coded as taking neither side included those linking to media coverage of the controversy without any additional commentary, and those posted by users who were clearly unaware of who Beard was and what had happened. This category also included tweets criticising a thread on white fragility created by researcher Anaïs Duong-​Pedica (2018), which described the image of Beard crying as “a typical white woman’s move to innocence.” Doung-​Pedica was accused of being racist herself for using the term “white” in her tweets, which simultaneously demonstrated the sensitivity of white people when discussing racism and their lack of understanding of whiteness. For example, a tweeter (who self-​identified as a college student) wrote “If you replace this person’s use of ‘white’ with ‘black’, you’d consider that tweet racist. If that’s the case, then this tweet is racist for using ‘white.’ ” Colourblind racism was evident in many of these posts, which perpetuated a false equivalency between whites and PoC in terms of their experiences of racism. There were also examples of more overt racism towards researchers of colour. Duong-​Pedica was a particular target for Twitter accounts expressing support for the Vote Leave campaign and the UK Conservative Party, who “othered” her by calling for her to “go home.” Researchers use Beard controversy to open discussion about whiteness

Citizens were also responsible for most of the tweets criticising Beard (425 tweets, 50.65 percent), followed by researchers such as Duong-​Pedica and

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  165

Figure 11.5 Groups responsible for tweets criticising Beard.

Gopal (148). Political tweeters (58 tweets) and those identifying as feminists (49 tweets) were also represented in this subsample (see Figure 11.5). There were proportionately fewer “no bios” (39 tweets, 4.6 percent) compared to the pro-​Beard corpus. These tweeters appeared to be debating issues around race and whiteness rather than being abusive towards Beard. There was little evidence of the scholar being “trolled” in the corpus, although this was probably due to the sampling strategy excluding tweets directed towards her. Most of those criticising Beard condemned the personal attacks she had experienced on the microblogging site (262 tweets, 31.2 percent), with 207 tweets (24.67 percent) focussing on Gopal’s response rather than the Cambridge academic (Figure 11.6). This apparent focus on personality was further demonstrated by the finding that fewer tweets focused on whiteness (154) and the controversial tweet itself (141). Historian Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock (2018) was among those to express their admiration for Beard while noting that she had “badly misjudged” the Oxfam scandal. Yet, not all these tweets were as sympathetic to the Cambridge scholar. Comedian Ava Vidal (2018) pushed back on suggestions Beard had been silenced, arguing that this had in fact been the outcome for those Black women who had “called her out.” Gopal (2018b) also expressed her confusion at Beard tagging her in a tweet sharing her TLS piece, noting that she had already responded to the controversy via her Medium essay. This had the presumably unintended effect of encouraging a “pile on” in which Gopal was subject to much abuse from Beard’s supporters.

166  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly

Figure 11.6 Themes present in tweets criticising Beard.

Elsewhere, there was evidence that Beard was being subject to abuse, albeit for a variety of different and seemingly contradictory reasons. Far-​right US commentator Dinesh D’Souza (2018) was responsible for one of the few antagonistic tweets in this category, characterising the Cambridge scholar as having a “sick mind” that would fit in with the “mercenary perverts at the Clinton foundation.” The implication being that her tweet was emblematic of the “moral bankruptcy” of left-​wing politics, rather than white privilege. Her reaction to the Twitter backlash was highlighted by others, with some using the “milk shake duck” meme to express their disappointment at her inability to understand the whiteness in her original tweet.3 Others went further in suggesting Beard had condoned the rape and sexual abuse of WoC through her framing of the Oxfam sex worker scandal. There was nevertheless some evidence that the controversy was being used by  researchers to spark debates about colourblind racism and whiteness. Public  figures such as Newman and Olusoga were criticised for their unequivocal support of the scholar and apparent indifference to the white fragility highlighted by Duong-​Pedica and others. However, these tweets tended to be agonistic rather than antagonistic in nature. Gopal’s essay was shared and endorsed in many of the tweets condemning Beard (175 tweets, 20.85 percent), ahead of those asserting that the controversial tweet condoned rape (104 tweets) and those using the incident to highlight white fragility (80) (see Figure 11.7). For example, Cornell Professor Rachel Weil (2018) suggested white women like herself “gotta shut and up and listen.” Weil was one of several researchers to share Gopal’s essay, acknowledging that their own white privilege and

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  167

Figure 11.7 Sub-​themes in tweets criticising Beard.

feminism perpetuated the racism experienced by WoC within the academy and elsewhere. Legal scholar Nadine El-​Enany (2018a) praised Gopal and compared her blogpost to a letter from US activist Audrey Lorde to Mary Daly in 1979, in which she challenged the feminist philosopher for not acknowledging the experiences of WoC. Tweets such as these were typically accompanied by links to the Gopal essay, the Duong-​Pedica white fragility thread, or coverage of the controversy in outlets such as Pink News. Little evidence of informal learning

While researchers such as Weil publicly acknowledged their racial biases, there was  little evidence elsewhere that the Beard Twitterstorm had helped whites acknowledge their own privilege, as well as the various forms of racism experienced by PoC. Indeed, the Olusoga tweet illustrated how not even all academics agreed Beard’s tweet provided prima facie evidence of whiteness in the UK. Overall, there appeared to be little evidence that the Beard Twitterstorm was facilitating informal learning on the scale seen during the BLM protests a few years earlier. Those supporting Beard could not understand how her tweet was considered racist, often failing to acknowledge the experiences of researchers of colour like Gopal, and even accusing them of being racist themselves. It was also clear that it was not just those on the right who vehemently denied the racial and colonial connotations of Beard’s tweet. While right-​leaning newspapers framed Beard as the victim of a “leftist” war on “free speech,” left-​wing political tweeters were unanimous in their support for the scholar.

168  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly An alternative, but not mutually exclusive interpretation, was that many tweeters were simply reluctant to publicly acknowledge their whiteness. Media portrayals of the UK as being more inclusive than other countries were reflected in tweets confirming Beard’s status as a national treasure, who could not possibly have condoned colonialism in her original tweet. Beard’s decision to temporarily leave the site simultaneously set an example for her supporters while demonstrating the white fragility highlighted by Duong-​Pedica. In these circumstances, there were fewer opportunities for informal learning compared to the video footage of police killings which led conservatives to acknowledge the injustice experienced by Black communities in the US. Those wittingly or unwittingly perpetuating whiteness were the most likely to offer unequivocal support for the Cambridge scholar and shut down any meaningful conversations about these issues. Limitations

There are several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, it was not possible to fully analyse conversations about the controversy that did not namecheck Beard due to the sampling criteria which excluded replies to these tweets. A related issue was that many tweets may have been deleted in the intervening period between the controversy and the data collection, thus being inaccessible to the researchers. Second, the categorisation of Twitter groups was initially based on the information disclosed on user bios, which often didn’t mention specific political affiliations and thus made it harder to complete this task. It was impossible to capture the responses of watchers (or “lurkers”) who did not leave a digital trace of their opinion on Beard’s tweet. Finally, recent research has shown that Twitter is over-​researched in studies of race online, with researchers based in the US and Europe dominating the field (Matamoros-​Fernandez & Farkas, 2021). Therefore, future research should examine whether other platforms, including IM apps like WhatsApp, facilitate informal learning about colourblind racism and whiteness. Conclusion Twitter was used by researchers of colour to resist the whiteness and colourblind racism perpetuated by Mary Beard’s controversial Oxfam tweet. While high-​ profile academics like Olusoga defended their friend and colleague, Duong-​Pedica and Gopal used the Twitterstorm to open up a conversation about whiteness. In terms of the discourses that emerged on the microblogging site, there were nearly twice as many tweets condemning Beard for her Oxfam tweet as supporting her. Much of this criticism focused on the whiteness, white privilege, and colonialism which underpinned this controversy. The analysis provided evidence of the importance of opinion leaders in online discussions around race. Gopal was a leading voice amongst those using

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  169 the Beard tweet to spark conversations about these issues and to encourage WoC to share their experiences, both within the academy and elsewhere. Her Medium essay, along with Duong-​Pedica’s white fragility thread, provided a focal point for the publics mobilised by this Twitterstorm. They invited researchers to reflect on their own whiteness and encouraged others to listen to the experiences of WoC. Perhaps inevitably, this leadership carried a heavy price in the form of the vitriolic abuse directed at Gopal and Duong-​Pedica, which illustrated the whiteness they had raised in their contributions. The qualitative analysis of these tweets showed little sign that the incident had provided a space for informal learning and about whiteness. For the majority of tweeters in the corpus there was little acknowledgement of the racial injustice experienced by PoC, as demonstrated by the treatment of Gopal and Duong-​Pedica. Additionally, it was found that tweeters self-​identifying as being on the left were unequivocal supporters of Beard. This resonated with the argument put forward by Eddo-​Lodge (2017), which suggests that whiteness persists due to the failure of those identifying as left-​wing or liberal to acknowledge their own prejudice. In this context, Beard’s supporters not engaging in discourses of race could be characterised as further evidence of their denial of their own white privilege (McIntosh, 1988), in addition to colourblind racism, as they were found alongside overt racists who identified on the right of the political spectrum. While there was no evidence of hate speech in this study, tweeters frequently invoked colourblind racism. Many perpetuated the “minimisation of racism” frame identified by Bonilla-​Silva, presuming things were better for people of colour than they are and failing to acknowledge Gopal’s experiences as both a researcher and person of colour. The burden of talking about whiteness fell on PoC, suggesting that Twitter perpetuated racial structures. The Audre Lorde letter was shared due to its resonance with the Twitterstorm, illustrating the importance of involving PoC as equal participants in conversations about race. Nevertheless, the study suggested Twitter retains potential as a tool for resistance and change when it comes to whiteness, especially when opinion leaders such as Gopal engage in these debates. Notes 1 This study was conducted prior to changes in Twitter’s API restricting academic access to historic tweets. Sifter was decommissioned on 30 September 2018. For more on this, see https://​texif​ter.zend​esk.com/​hc/​en-​us/​secti​ons/​200581​030-​Sif​ter-​FAQ (accessed 16 October 2019). 2 There was a small amount of data loss from tweets scraped and those analysed: 2,320 tweets were scraped and 2,313 were analysed. 3 Milk shake duck meme describes a person who “becomes extremely popular on the internet for some positive reason, but as their popularity takes off and people dig into their past, they quickly become an object of outrage and hatred.” See www.dic​tion​ ary.com/​e/​slang/​milksh​ake-​duck/​ (accessed 26 July 2020).

170  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly References Amnesty International UK. (2018). Toxic Twitter: A toxic place for Twitter. Retrieved 23 August 2018 from www.amne​sty.org/​en/​lat​est/​resea​rch/​2018/​03/​onl​ine-​viole​nce-​ agai​nst-​women-​chap​ter-​1/​ Beard, M. [wmarybeard]. (2018a, February 16). Of course one can’t condone the (alleged) behaviour of Oxfam staff in Haiti and elsewhere. But I do wonder how [Tweet]. Retrieved 20 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​wma​rybe​ard/​sta​tus/​964​ 6135​9283​3253​376?lang=​en Beard, M. [wmarybeard]. (2018b, February 17). thanks to those who have engaged with this. there is no right answer here. i just wish we were not so. [Tweet]. Retrieved 24 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​wma​rybe​ard/​sta​tus/​964​9724​ 8850​0408​320 Beard, M. (2018c, February 17). Oxfam. TLS. Retrieved 10 August 2018 from www. the-​tls.co.uk/​oxfam/​ Beninger, K. (2017). Social media user’ views on the ethics of social media research. In Sloan, L. & Quan-​Haase, A. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media research methods (pp. 57–​73). London: Sage Bhambra, G.K. (2017). Brexit, Trump and ‘methodological whiteness’: On the misrecognition of race and class. The British Journal of Sociology 68(1): 214–​232. Bhopal, K. (2021, March 31). The Sewell report displays a basic misunderstanding of how racism works. The Guardian. Retrieved 11 April 2021 from www.theg​uard​ ian.com/​commen​tisf​ree/​2021/​mar/​31/​sew​ell-​rep​ort-​rac​ism-​gov​ernm​ent-​rac​ial-​dispar​ ity-​uk Bonilla-​Silva, E. (2017). Racism without racists: Color-​blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality on the United States. 5th edition. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC]. (2018, February 20). Oxfam Haiti Scandal: Thousands cancel donations to charity. BBC. Retrieved 18 August 2018 from www.bbc.co.uk/​news/​uk-​43121​833 Bruns, A. (2019). Are filter bubbles real? Cambridge: Polity Press. Bruns, A., Moon, B., Paul, A., & Münch, F. (2016). Towards a typology of hashtag publics: A large-​scale comparative study of user engagement across trending topics. Communication Research and Practice 2(1): 20–​46. D’Ancona, M. (2018, February 18). Mary Beard doesn’t deserve the abuse of the crazed social media mob, Evening Standard. Retrieved 30 August 2018 from www.stand​ard. co.uk/​comm​ent/​comm​ent/​mary-​beard-​doesn-​t-​dese​rve-​the-​abuse-​of-​the-​cra​zed-​soc​ ial-​media-​mob-​a3772​291.html Drisko, J. & Maschi, T. (2015). Content analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. D’Souza, D. [DineshDSouza]. (2018, February 18). A look inside the sick mind of a progressive academic who would fit right in with the mercenary perverts at [Tweet]. Retrieved 21 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​Dines​hDSo​uza/​sta​tus/​965​3179​ 7958​7186​688 Duong-​Pedica, A. [anaisdpedica]. (2018, February 17). Not going to keep retweeting Mary Beard but I just want it to be noted that her last tweets (saying [Tweet]. Retrieved 20 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​anais​dped​ica/​sta​tus/​965​0071​7948​ 8157​696?lang=​en Eddo-​ Lodge, R. (2017). Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  171 El-​Enany, N. [NadineElEnany]. (2018a, February 18). Thread. Inspired by the powerful response from @PriyamvadaGopal to Mary Beard @wmarybeard https://​med​ium. com/​@zen.catg​irl/​respo​nse-​to-​mary-​beard-​91a6c​f2f5​3b6 … Today @sarahjkeenan and I re-​read Audre Lorde’s Letter to Mary Daly: www.histo​ryis​awea​pon.com/​defc​ on1/​lordeo​penl​ette​rtom​aryd​aly.html. [Tweet]. Retrieved 20 August 2018 from https://​ twit​ter.com/​Nadine​ElEn​any/​sta​tus/​965​2175​4474​6553​344 Farkas, J., Schou, J., & Neumayer, C. (2018). Platformed antagonism: Racist discourses on fake Muslim Facebook pages. Critical Discourse Studies 15(5): 463–​480. Feagin, J.R. (2013). The White racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter-​ framing. New York: Routledge. franzke, A.S., Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C., & the Association of Internet Researchers. (2020). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. https://​aoir.org/​repo​ rts/​ethi​cs3.pdf Freelon, D., McIlwain, C.D., & Clark, M.D. (2016). Beyond the Hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice. Washington D.C.: Center for Media & Social Impact, American University. Available at: http://​cmsimp​act. org/​wp-​cont​ent/​uplo​ads/​2016/​03/​beyon​d_​th​e_​ha​shta​gs_​2​016.pdf (accessed 10 February 2022). Gopal, P. (2018a, February 18). Response to Mary Beard. Medium. Retrieved 10 August 2018 from https://​med​ium.com/​@zen.catg​irl/​respo​nse-​to-​mary-​beard-​91a6c​f2f5​3b6 Gopal, P. [PriyamvadaGopal]. (2018b, February 18). I’m truly confused. Mary Beard tweeted her blogpost at me, tagging me. It was a public post. I responded publicly [Tweet]. Retrieved 20 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​priy​amva​dago​pal/​sta​tus/​ 965​3182​9604​3171​840?lang=​en Hirsch, A. (2018, February 20). Oxfam abuse scandal is built on the aid industry’s white saviour mentality. The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2018 from www.theg​uard​ian. com/​commen​tisf​ree/​2018/​feb/​20/​oxfam-​abuse-​scan​dal-​haiti-​colo​nial​ism Hughey, M., & Daniels, J. (2013). Racist comments at online news sites: A methodological dilemma for discourse analysis. Media, Culture & Society 35(3): 332–​347. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​01634​4371​2472​089 Madood, T. (2014). Multiculturalism and Britishness: Provocations, hostilities and advances. In Garbaye, R. & Schnapper, P. (Eds.), The politics of ethnic diversity in the British Isles (pp. 21–​35). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Martinot, S. (2010). The machinery of whiteness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Mason, D. (2000). Race and ethnicity in modern Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Matamoros-​ Fernandez, A. (2017). Platformed racism: The mediation and circulation of an Australian race–​based controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Information, Communication & Society 20(6): 930–​946. Matamoros-​ Fernandez, A. (2018). Inciting anger through Facebook reactions in Belgium: The use of emoji and related vernacular expressions in racist discourse, First Monday 23(9). Matamoros-​Fernández, A. & Farkas, J. (2021). Racism, hate speech, and social media: A systematic review and critique. Television & New Media, 22(2): 205–​224. https://​doi. org/​10.1177/​15274​7642​0982​230 McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies (Wellesley College Center for Research on Women No. 189). Massachusetts: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.

172  Ceri Ashwell and Paul Reilly Moutet, A.E. [moutet]. (2018, February 18). Comrade, make your auto-​critique now and fully accept your guilt before you get sent out to the countryside commune for re-​education [Tweet]. Retrieved 17 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​mou​tet/​sta​ tus/​965​2205​4445​8174​465 NatCen. (2017, September 29). New report uncovers extent of racial prejudice in Britain [Press release]. Retrieved 24 August 2018 from www.nat​cen.ac.uk/​news-​media/​press-​ relea​ses/​2017/​septem​ber/​new-​rep​ort-​uncov​ers-​ext​ent-​of-​rac​ial-​prejud​ice-​in-​brit​ain/​ Newman, C. [cathynewman]. (2018, February 18). Sad that @wmarybeard is being trolled off Twitter once again. The tenor of social media debate has to change –​and [Tweet]. Retrieved 19 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​cath​ynew​man/​sta​tus/​965​ 2458​9776​3446​784 Ofcom. (2015). Adults’ media use and attitudes. Retrieved 18 August 2018 from www. ofcom.org.uk/​_​_​d​ata/​ass​ets/​pdf_​f​i le/​0014/​82112/​2015_​adults_​med​ia_​u​se_​a​nd_​a​ttit​ udes​_​rep​ort.pdf O’Loughlin, B., Vaccari, C., Ozgul, B.A., & Dennis, J. (2017). Twitter and global political crises: Cycles of insecurity in #PrayforParis and #PrayforSyria. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 10: 175–​203. Olusoga, D. [DavidOlusoga]. (2018, February 19). I’m horrified to see @wmarybeard is the focus of such horrible attacks on Twitter. The idea that my friend Mary [Tweet]. Retrieved 19 August from https://​twit​ter.com/​David​Olus​oga/​sta​tus/​965​8456​7108​ 4462​080 O’Neill, S. (2018, February 9). Oxfam in Haiti: ‘It was like a Caligula orgy with prostitutes in Oxfam T-​shirts.’ The Times. Retrieved 1 September 2019 from www. theti​mes.co.uk/​arti​cle/​oxfam-​in-​haiti-​it-​was-​like-​a-​calig​ula-​orgy-​with-​pros​titu​tes-​in-​ oxfam-​t-​shi​rts-​p32wlk​0rp Pennock, C. [carolinepennock]. (2018, February 18). I think this thread is fair. I find the whole thing difficult, because I like & admire Mary, but I think [Tweet]. Retrieved 25 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​caro​line​penn​ock/​statu​ses/​965​4771​4445​ 6556​545 Petray, T.L., & Collin, R. (2017). Your privilege is trending: Confronting whiteness on social media. Social Media +​Society. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​20563​0511​7706​783 Ramaswamy, C. (2018, February 19). How the fallout from Mary Beard’s Oxfam tweet shines a light on genteel racism. The Guardian. Retrieved 30 August 2018 from: www. theg​uard​ian.com/​lifea​ndst​yle/​2018/​feb/​19/​mary-​beard-​oxfam-​tweet-​gent​eel-​rac​ism Romano, A. (2017, March 7). How Get Out deconstructs racism for white people, Vox. Retrieved 30 August 2018 from www.vox.com/​cult​ure/​2017/​3/​7/​14759​756/​get-​out-​ ben​evol​ent-​rac​ism-​white-​femin​ism Rzepnikowska, A. (2018). Racism and xenophobia experienced by Polish migrants in the UK before and after Brexit vote. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(1): 61–​77. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​13691​83X.2018.1451​308 Schreier, M. (2014). Qualitative content analysis. In Flick, U. (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 170–​183). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Valeriani, A., & Vaccari, C. (2016). Accidental exposure to politics on social media as online participation equalizer in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. New Media & Society 18(9): 1857–​1874. Vidal, A. [thetwerkinggirl]. (2018, February 18). Mary Beard isn’t being silenced. People called her out and there’s a huge difference. Lots of black women called her out. [Tweet]. Retrieved 21 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​thet​werk​ingg​irl/​sta​ tus/​965​3029​5873​1812​866?lang=​en

Resisting (everyday) racism on social media  173 Weil, R.J. [racheljweil]. (2018, February 18). Sometimes white people like me just gotta shush up and listen. I learned something from reading this. “Response to Mary Beard” [Tweet]. Retrieved 25 August 2018 from https://​twit​ter.com/​rach​eljw​eil/​statu​ ses/​965​3283​8276​1295​877 White Fragility (n.d.). In Oxford living dictionaries. Retrieved 1 September 2018 from https://​en.oxf​ordd​icti​onar​ies.com/​def​i nit​ion/​whit​e_​fr​agil​ity

Index

Note: Endnotes are indicated by the page number followed by “n” and the note number e.g., 120n7 refers to note 7 on page 120. Page numbers in bold indicate tables; those in italics indicate figures. Adamova, M. 79 affective politics 11, 13; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 151, 153; mutual aid networks 17, 19–​20, 23 Afghanistan, and Indian Passport Rules 120n7 Aganaktismenoi square occupations 28–​29, 34, 37, 44 Agustín, O.G. 76 Ahmad, S. 112 Akyvernites Politeies (AP) 48, 50–​54, 56 Alegría, R. 92 All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad 120n4 All Assam Students’ Union 120n4 Alwar, S. 111, 118 anarchist(ic) movements 125–​127, 135, 150; Rouvikonas 125–​126, 129–​136 ANEL, Greece 29 anti-​austerity movements see austerity resistance anti-​racism see racism Anwar, A. 77 Argentina: 2001 popular rebellion 11, 13, 15–​16; mutual aid networks 19–​20; real democracy movement 17; recuperated workplaces 16; Unemployed Workers Movement (MTD) 13; women’s movements 14 art: India’s anti-​CAA protests 109–​113, 115–​119; Puerto Rico metal music store 94–​99 Assad, B. al-​152

asylum seekers, UK 72–​83 Ataşir Solidarity Network 23 austerity resistance 1–​2; Greece 26–​29, 32–​38, 42, 44, 61–​62, 64, 128–​129; Portugal 27; Puerto Rico 98; solidarity 6; UK 74–​76 Australia, and racism 159 Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) 143–​145, 152 Aydın, D. 149 Ayub, R. 115 Bad Bunny 93 Badiou, A. 66 Bakunin, M. 127 Bangladesh: Assam Accord 104; independence 120n5 Bano, B. 115, 117 Barbour, M. 74 Beard, M. 156–​157, 159–​169 Belcem, Heval 141, 143, 151 Benally, K. 21–​22 Bennett, W.L. 104, 107, 119 Bensaid, D. 66 bergman, c. 21–​22 Betsen, K. 94, 96, 100 Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) 105 Bios Co-​op 47–​48, 50–​54, 56 Black Lives Matter (BLM) 136, 156, 159, 167–​168; UK 79 Bloch, E. 83 Blyth, M. 76 Boggs, C. 36 Bonilla-​Silva, E. 169

Index  175 Bookchin, M. 142, 148, 153 Boryszew 65 Bosnia, real democracy movement 17 Boulianne, S. 119 Brazil: Instagram users 108; landless movement (MST) 13, 16; metal music stores 89; real democracy movement 17 Brexit 157–​158, 162, 164 British Social Attitudes Survey 158 Bruce, T. 83 Butler, J. 104, 109–​110 C19 People’s Coalition 21 Calle 13: 93 capitalocentrism 30–​31, 37 Carcel, Heval 145–​147, 152 Casas, A. 109 Chandrashekar, A. 112 Chile, metal music stores 94 citizenship protests, India 104–​120 climate justice, and migrant justice 79 Cobián, M. 92 Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, La (La Cole) 93 Colectiva Sembrar 18–​24 Colombia, metal music stores 94 colonialism: Latin America and the Caribbean 87–​100; UK 164, 168; women’s oppression 147 colourblind racism 158–​159, 161, 163–​164, 166, 168–​169 commons: Greece 43–​45; India’s anti-​ CAA protests 112, 119; social media platforms 107 communication practices 127–​128; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 149; Rouvikonas 125–​126, 130–​136 Conservative Party, UK 164 cooperatives: criticisms 46–​47; Greece 29, 42–​56; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 145, 147, 153 COP26 demonstration, Glasgow 79 Corbyn, J. 162 Cortazar, J. 92 COVID-​19 pandemic 12; India’s anti-​CAA protests 107; mutual aid networks 13, 17–​24; UK asylum seekers 78; UK Roma migrants 80–​81 Creative Commons 112, 119 Creatives Against CAA 112, 119 Dag, F. 75 Daly, M. 167

Dantesco 97–​99 decolonial resistance, Latin America and the Caribbean 87–​100 De Genova, N. 72–​73, 76 Democratic Confederalism 142, 146, 151, 153 Democratic Left (DIMAR), Greece 137n2 Denmark, racism 159 Dirik, D. 12 Domanska, E. 109 D’Souza, D. 166 D’Souza, P. 111, 119 Duong-​Pedica, A. 163–​164, 166–​169 Eddo-​Lodge, R. 169 Egypt, real democracy movement 17 El-​Enany, N. 167 Emin, Heval 148 Engels, F. 75 ERT 137n2 ERTOpen 134 European Central Bank 27–​28, 37 European Commission 27, 37 European Parliament 80 European Union: Brexit 157–​158, 162, 164; Greek bailout agreements 27–​28, 37; Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) 27 Facebook: I Love Pollokshields group 79; No Evictions Network 78; racism 159; Rouvikonas 130, 132 fantasy 30–​33, 37–​38 Fatma, Heval 141, 144–​145, 149, 151 Featherstone, D. 74, 76, 79 feminism: Beard Twitterstorm 165; Jineology 150–​151; Rouvikonas 134, 136; whiteness 158 Finley, E. 22 Floyd, G. 80 food strikes, UK asylum seekers 78–​79 France, recuperated workplaces 16 Freire, P. 88, 150 Freud, S. 31 Garalytė, K. 105 Garner, E. 159 Ghosh, A. 106, 113 Gibson-​Graham, J.K. 26, 30–​31 Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees 74 Glasgow Girls 74

176  Index global financial crisis: Greece 27; Italy 65 Glynos, J. 31 Goldman, E. 3, 133 Gopal, P. 156–​157, 160, 163, 165–​169 Greece: austerity resistance 26–​29, 32–​38, 42, 44, 61–​62, 64, 128–​129; cooperatives 42–​56; healthcare provisioning 26–​27, 29, 31, 33–​38, 59–​64, 69–​70; Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko (MCH) 27, 29, 33–​38; recuperated workplaces 16; Rouvikonas 125–​126, 129–​136; sovereign debt crisis 27, 31–​33, 36–​38, 42, 44, 48, 128; square occupations 28–​29, 34, 37, 44 Guattari, F. 70 Hage, G. 43 Haider, M. 113–​114 Haiti, Oxfam workers in 156–​157, 159–​169 hate speech 159, 169 healthcare provisioning, Greece 26–​27, 31; KIA 59–​64, 69–​70; Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko (MCH) 27, 29, 33–​38 Hevi, Heval 151, 153 Hindus 121n12 Hurricane María 29–​96, 99 immigrants: ambivalence towards 72; Greece 32, 35, 53, 134; India 104–​105; UK 157; US 158; see also refugees India: Assam Accord 104–​105; Citizenship Act 104–​105; Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests 104–​120; Constitution 104–​105; Foreigners Order 120n7; Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 121n10; mutual aid networks 20; National Register of Citizens (NRC) 105; Passport Rules 120n7 Indian National Congress 120n6 Indignados 1 Indonesia, Instagram users 108 Instagram 104, 108–​120 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 27–​28, 33, 37 ISIS 141, 144, 152–​153 Italy: mutual aid networks 22; recuperated workplaces 16, 59–​61, 64–​70; Ri.Maflow 59–​61, 64–​70

Jahaan family 114 Jineology 150–​151 Jinwar women’s commune 140–​141; affect 148–​149; autonomy 144–​146; ecologism 147–​148; education 149–​151; gender equality 146–​147; horizontalism 141–​144; self-​defense 152–​154; territorialization 151–​152 Jørgensen, M.B. 76 Jost, J.T. 107 Kadak 112 Kadıköy Solidarity Network 19 Kalaitzidis, G. 129–​130, 135 Kalandides, A. 125, 129 Kelliher, D. 75 Khalid, U. 115, 116 Khan, Z.A. 111, 113 KIA 59–​64, 69–​70 Kinlani/​Flagstaff Mutual Aid 21–​22 Kress, G. 130 Kurdish women’s commune, Jinwar 140–​141; affect 148–​149; autonomy 144–​146; ecologism 147–​148; education 149–​151; gender equality 146–​147; horizontalism 141–​144; self-​ defense 152–​154; territorialization 151–​152 Kyŏngsŏk, P. 20–​21 La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción (La Cole) 93 Labour Party, UK 162 landless movement (MST), Brazil 13, 16 Lena Modotti Brigade 22 Lettieri, M. 67–​68 LeVine, M. 88 Lilja, M. 60 Living Rent, UK 78, 81–​82 Lorde, A. 167, 169 Maflow 65 Malavé Maldonado, J. 97–​100 Manoukas, C. 54 Marcos, Subcomandante Insurgente 32, 153 Marichal, J. 104, 108 Martelli, J.T. 105 Martin, R. 93 Martínez Ocasio, B.A. 93 Martinot, S. 157 Marx, K. 76 Mataragas, N. 135

Index  177 Mayblin, L. 75 McAdam, D. 24n1 MEARS, UK 78 Medina, S. 99 Mehrotra, I. 111, 115, 116 metal music stores, Latin America and the Caribbean 87–​100 #metoo movement 134 Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko (MCCH) 27, 29, 33–​38 Mexico: women’s movements 14; Zapatistas 11–​15, 17, 153 Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment (MORE), UK 78 modernariat 68 Modi, N. 106 Mohanty, C. 73 Monjane, B. 21 Monsanto 16 Morales, E. 89–​100 Morris, L. 75 Moutet, A.-​E. 163 Movement of the Squares 11 Mozambique, mutual aid networks 21 Muslims: India 105–​120; platformed racism 159; US immigrant ban 158 mutual aid networks, COVID-​19 pandemic 13, 17–​24 Nardi, B.A. 128 New Democracy (ND), Greece 137n2 Newman, C. 163, 166 Nimet, Heval 141–​150, 154 No Evictions Network (NEN), UK 77–​79 Öcalan, A. 142, 147, 153 Occupy movement 4, 136 O’Day, V.L. 128 Odin’s Court, Puerto Rico 89–​100 Olusoga, D. 163, 166–​168 Oxfam 156–​157, 159–​169 Özdemir, S. 19, 23 Palestine, and Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko 35 Partido Nueva Progresista (New Progressive Party), Puerto Rico 92, 97 PASOK 137n2 patriarchy: and colonialism 147; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 144, 150, 153; Rouvikonas 134 Pennock, C.D. 165 Pérez Joglar, R. 93

performativity, India’s anti-​CAA protests 109–​110, 112–​115, 120 Peru, metal music stores 89 photo culture 108 Piñeiro, N. 19–​20 PKK 142–​144, 147 platformed racism 156, 159 Point Blank 49–​54, 56 Poland, women’s movements 14 Poovannan 109 Portugal: austerity 27; real democracy movement 17 positivism 150 proserhomenos 62–​64 psychoanalysis 30 public sphere, India’s anti-​CAA protests 107, 109–​110, 119 Puerto Rico, metal music stores 89–​100 Quijano, A. 87 racism: Beard Twitterstorm 156–​157, 159–​169; colourblind 158–​159, 161, 163–​164, 166, 168–​169; minimisation 169; platformed 156, 159; UK 72–​83 Rakopoulos, T. 34 rallies, UK refugee and asylum seeker advocacy 78–​79 real democracy movements 13, 16–​17 recuperated workplaces 16; Ri.Maflow, Italy 59–​61, 64–​70 refugees: Greece 35, 53, 134; UK 72–​83 Refugees for Justice, UK 79 Reid, J. 74 rent strikes, UK 74 Ri.Maflow 59–​61, 64–​70 Rojava, Jinwar women’s commune 140–​141; affect 148–​149; autonomy 144–​146; ecologism 147–​148; education 149–​151; gender equality 146–​147; horizontalism 141–​144; self-​ defense 152–​154; territorialization 151–​152 Roma immigrants, UK 76–​83 Romano Lav 79–​83 Rose, G. 109 Rosselló, P. 92–​96, 99 Rouvikonas 125–​126, 129–​136 Roy, D. 20 Roychoudhury, S. 109 Rumet, Heval 141, 144 Russia: Instagram users 108; real democracy movement 17

178  Index Samaras, A. 32 Sarkar, T. 109 Scholz, S. 73 Scotland: independence referendum 74; racism resistance 72–​83 Segerberg, A. 104, 107, 119 Sehdev, S. 77 Sen, O. 112 Sen, R. 112 SERCO 78 Sethumadhavan, S. 111, 115, 117 Shin, J. Y. 20–​21 Singh, L. 77 Sivanandan, A. 73 slacktivism 108 Smish Designs 112 social ecology 148, 153 social media: communication practices 128; India’s anti-​CAA protests 106–​108; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 149; Rouvikonas 130, 132, 136; UK Roma migrants 80; Verano del 19, Puerto Rico 92, 94; see also Facebook; Instagram; Twitter; WhatsApp; YouTube social solidarity clinics and pharmacies (SSCPs), Greece 26–​27; KIA 59–​64, 69–​70; Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko (MCH) 27, 29, 33–​38 South Africa, mutual aid networks 21 South Korea, mutual aid networks 20–​21 Spain: Indignados 1; new municipalism 43; real democracy movement 17 square occupations, Greece 28–​29, 34, 37, 44 Stop Lock Change Coalition, UK 78 student movements: India 105–​106, 108, 113–​115, 116, 120n4; Rouvikonas 134, 136 Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos 32, 153 Suleman, S.S. 112 Susarla, K. 111, 112, 119 Syria: Jinwar women’s commune 140–​152; Metropolitan Health Clinic at Helliniko 35 Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) 152–​153 Syriza 29, 45, 137n2 Systrom, K. 108 Táala Hooghan Infoshop 21–​22 Taneja, R. 112

Tarrow, S. 24n1 Tazzioli, M. 73, 76 Tendencia 101n1 Tilly, C. 24n1 Tomáš, S. 80 trade unions, UK 74 Trump, D. 158 Tunisia, real democracy movement 17 Turkey: Instagram users 108; mutual aid networks 19, 23; real democracy movement 16–​17; recuperated workplaces 16 Turtle Island 21–​22 Twitter: Beard Twitterstorm 156–​157, 159–​169; Black Lives Matter 156, 159, 167–​168; India’s anti-​CAA protests 106; No Evictions Network 78; over-​ researched in race studies 168 Tyner, J.A. 75 Unemployed Workers Movement (MTD), Argentina 13 unemployment: Argentina 13; Greece 32 United Kingdom: Beard Twitterstorm 156–​157, 159–​169; Brexit 157–​158, 162, 164; colonialism 164, 168; Nationality and Borders Act 79, 83; racism 72–​83, 157–​159; Scottish independence referendum 74 United States: Black Lives Matter 156, 168; FEMA 18; Hurricane María response 93; Instagram users 108; Puerto Rico’s colonial relationship with 92, 98; real democracy movement 17; Seattle protests (1999) 107; Twitter over-​researched in race studies 168; women’s movements 14 Unity Centre, UK 74–​75, 78 Uruguay, recuperated workplaces 16 Vaiou, D. 125, 129 Van Leeuwen, T. 130 Verano del 19, Puerto Rico 92–​97, 99 Vianda Fest, Puerto Rico 90 Vickers, T. 73 Vidal, A. 165 Villanueva, J. 92 violence: anarchist movements 126–​127; Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava

Index  179 152–​153; Rouvikonas 129–​130, 133–​134 Vio.Me. 48–​54, 56 Wallach, J. 88 websites: Jinwar women’s commune, Rojava 149; Rouvikonas 130–​136 Weil, R. 166–​167 WhatsApp 77 whiteness 156–​160, 162–​169 Williams, D.M. 126 Williams, N.W. 109

Wolsfsfeld, G. 104 women’s movements 14; Jinwar commune, Rojava 140–​154; mutual aid networks 18 Women’s Protection Units (Yekitiya Parastina Jin, YPJ) 146, 152 YouTube 130, 132 Zapatistas 11–​15, 17, 153 Zibechi, R. 12, 141, 149, 151–​152 Zimbabwe, mutual aid networks 21